


Borrowed Time

by redboard



Category: Anarky (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)
Genre: And They Were Narrative Foils (Oh My God), Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Enemies to Lovers, Enemy of the week: Big Pharma, Extralegal Partners, Guilt, I gave in and added the OT3 tag. The flesh is weak, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, What Bats doesn’t Know Wont Hurt Him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redboard/pseuds/redboard
Summary: Robin knows he shouldn't trust his own rogues. Thats vigilantism 101, you give them an inch and then you end up in jail or worse, dead.But when the only way to get to the bottom of a conspiracy is to cooperate with Anarky—the troublemaking anarchist who's come the closest to becoming his equal—then he's willing to take his chances. For justice.Or at least, that was what he told everyone else. He's not so sure anymore.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake & Batfam, Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake/Stephanie Brown
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set after One Year Later but before Battle for The Cowl. You don’t have to read the comics to read this.

A man is driving down a deserted highway towards the city coming from the outskirts. He takes advantage of the late hour and doesn’t mind speeding past 100mph. He doesn’t think much of it either, it’s the weekend after a long work week, he’s had a bit too much to drink to celebrate.

He doesn’t see the turn and falls straight into a ditch on the side of the road. His death is so immediate he didn’t feel pain.

It’s easy for Robin to piece the story of the accident in less than five minutes as he looks over the crash.

“Standard DUI. If it wasn’t for the because it reeks of gasoline and burnt tires I could probably smell the alcohol…” he mumbles to himself as he gives the wreckage a cursory look. 

He'd been lucky to spot the vehicle in such a dark stretch of the road and had only approached to find any survivors. However he dashed any hopes of that as he immediately saw a man slumped halfway through his windshield, face unrecognizable.

Still, training drilled into him didn’t let him make any assumptions and he made a routine check for any foul play. He couldn’t find any identification on the victim, but he was able to find a burst bottle of water in the backseat that smelled suspiciously of vodka.

“Franma…”

“ _ I’m afraid you’re still much too young for that Master Robin _ ,” a voice chimed in from his ear. 

Tim’s lips subconsciously twitched into an easy-going Robin smile before sobering up out of respect for the victim. “Rest easy Agent A, I won’t add underage drinking to my illegal vigilantism. ‘Sides, if I did I wouldn't go for this kind of cheap stuff.”

“ _ That is  _ very  _ reassuring. _ ” Alfred remarked dryly. “ _ Will the young master be returning any time soon or should I simply add to the list of people refusing to eat my food? _ ”

“I was turning back already Al, just stumbled onto an accident on the way.”

“ _ Anything of interest, sir? _ ”

“No, but...” Tim said giving the scene one last look. He couldn’t help but think he was missing something. He shook his head and started the trek back to where he’d left his motorcycle. “I’ll call it in, be there in ten.”

After a late dinner that night he would run the plate numbers through his database, he’d find the victims information. Chris O’Hare, age 34, quality control assistant at a local pharmaceutical research company, no relatives, had left behind a cute rescued labrador dog and a dingy apartment in the Upper West and nothing else of note. The police would declare it an accident and O’Hares case would be closed.

Tim heard a knock come from behind him and turned. Dick was leaning on the door frame of his room, a fist half raised against the wall.

“You know, people usually knock first and come in after.” Tim scolded with a hint of humor.

Dick grinned. “I'm not in though?”

Tim looked down at his feet, indeed he was still technically standing in the hallway. He shook his head and turned back to look in the mirror, fiddling with his blazer.

Dick whistled “Can't believe they haven't changed the uniform. Have you seen Bruce's yearbook? You're the spitting image of him.” He finally came in and started fiddling with the tools strewn on Tims desk. Tim watched him through the mirror and rolled his eyes. “Well, except for the hair.

Tim tried to ignore him, but he had to ask. “What's wrong with my hair?”

It had grown a lot in the past year, currently the longest he's ever had it. His dad would have never let him have it brush his ears, nevermind his shoulders. But that wasn't really a problem anymore.

“Nothing! Looks good on you! Have you ever considered a mullet though? Girls in highschool  _ loved _ it.”

He cut his eyes towards Dick and saw his mocking grin. “Haha, no. Did you miss the memo? This is the new ‘bad boy’ look.” He slid a wristband through his left hand, and if it had a few lockpicks hidden within it then that was his business.

“Bad boy? Is that what you were going for? Sorry, I thought you were going for Kevin from the Backstreet Boys.” Tim closed his eyes in annoyance.

“Maybe I’ll add some bloody knuckles,” he grinned, raising his fist threateningly. He picked up his backpack and walked past Dick, who turned to follow him. “To, yknow, really sell it. You up for a donation?”

“You don’t respect your elders.”

“Spare me the lecture, grandpa.”

After passing the kitchen and snatching some of his toast Dick spoke up again. “Hey, so, how are things with Stephanie?”

Tim winced. He would never be at Dicks level when it came to communication but that had been crass even for him.

“Uhh, we're fine?” 

“I heard you guys go to the same school.”  _ From whom?  _ “You hang out a lot?” Dick said, catching up to him and ribbing him with his elbow unsubtly.

“Not at school, no. We have, we keep to ourselves.”

“Well, dont sorry. I’ve been there, in the cold zone.”

“The cold-” Tim muttered, utterly confused.

Dick patted his shoulder. “You guys made a good couple, you’ll get her back.” He smiled brightly.

Tim honestly hopped the ground would open up and eat them both.“I just don't get why I have to go to school again.” He said, forcibly changing the subject with a sigh. They exited the stable-turned-house where Tim had taken residence and immediately ran into Bruce.

“Because you are still a child and children go to school.” Bruce said, his posture was relaxed, his hands stuffed in his pocket.

“Not like I need it.” Tim said after recovering from the fright. Some day he swore he would stop getting surprised by this. He tried to pass his flinch as adjusting his backpack on his shoulder and yawned. “I could go to any college I wanted at this point.”

“Schools are not always just about academics Tim,” Dick said, and Tim cursed in his head, they were ganging up against him again.

“Yeah, well, don't you guys have jobs to get to instead of come bother me like this?”

“It's my day off.” Dick shrugged. “Im kicking back today.”

They both looked at Bruce. He did not deem it necessary to make an excuse. He was probably working on a billion secret cases.

Tim patted him in the shoulder. “You should go to work, I bet Lucius would be ecstatic to be reminded what your face looks like.” He turned to walk away. 

“I'll take you to school.” Bruce said.

“Nuh-uh, you’re not. No way.” Bruce had become… weird lately. Ever since the fake-slash-sorta-real kidnapping from a while back. It was like he was breathing over his neck, it got on his nerves a lot. “You're gonna kill my vibe.”

“You ‘vibe’??” Dick laughed heartily.

“Yeah, so I’m dipping out. I'll be going on patrol right after school to check some stuff out so don't wait for me!” He said, jumping on the Redbird.

“Alright. Don't forget your comm.”

Tim pulled out of the driveway without any reply, soon leaving out of sight.

Dick turned to Bruce, his smile turning into a wolfish grin.

“What?”

“You're so predictable.”

“I don't know what youre talking about.”

He was only able to make it through three periods before actively day dreaming about knocking himself out with his locker. He never  _ loved _ school, but at some point it had become a truly insufferable experience for reasons his peers would never be able to relate with.

He forcibly stuffed his books on the already cramped space and closed the locker with a sigh.

“Hey,” said someone directly to his right, and Tim  _ almost _ startled. 

“HE—yyy, Zoanne,” he squeaked, before clearing his throat and trying again, leaning casually against his locker. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? You missed two sessions this past week!” Zoanne exclaimed wide eyed, like she can’t believe he’s even  _ asking _ , “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding me in the hallways! Where were you?!”

“Uh,” Tim couldn’t help but think back to a couple nights ago when he was being held at gunpoint by a bunch of Penguins men at the docks to buy time for the cavalry. “Family stuff.”

“Right,” she said, crossing her arms. She jabbed his chest with a finger. “ _ You _ always have ‘family stuff’. Y’know , I also have ‘stuff’ I’d rather be doing than tutor someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate it.”

“I’m sorr—“

“But you’re aware we have to put in the hours at least, if you don’t do good in class then I’m not getting my credits either, you understand? It’s my neck on the line too.”

“I know, and don’t worry there’s—“

“I’m not worried, but you, Drake? Figure yourself out before you waste other people’s time. Okay?” She jabbed again.

“I’m sorry, Zo,” she glared, “Zoanne. Listen I’ll make it up to you, I really don’t mean to waste your time.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, her arms crossed before she sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Right. I know you’re not.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m just a bit stressed, I’m not sleeping well and… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“That’s okay. You, um, you do look tired.”

“It’s nothing, I’m taking something for it.” She shook her head and straightened up again. “Keep your head on your shoulders Drake.” She said before walking away.

The bell rang at that moment and Tim made to open his locker again and get the books for his next class when he spotted Stephanie at the other end of the hallway. 

She was talking to some friends and she briefly glanced in his direction, winking conspiratorially before turning to resume her conversation.

Tim decided he’d made a valiant effort but today’s school day was getting cut short.

Moments later he was flying in his Robin colors, keeping the flashy flips to a minimum as it was still far from his usual patrolling hours, despite what Gotham’s perpetual cloudy skies would lead anyone to believe.

He wasn’t exactly aimless either. He was looking for O’Hares apartment. There had been something worrying him about the accident but he couldn’t put his finger on  _ what _ it was. So he decided to get more information on the victim before anyone he knew came to clean his place.

It was easy enough to find. A small studio apartment in the fifth floor of an eight floor building. Since it was still light out he couldn’t risk being seen going in through the window, so he entered the building through a skylight on the roof. Then, it was just matter of picking the lock of the apartment. 

Thankfully he didn’t bump into anyone on the way. It would be difficult to explain why Robin was here and worse even, during school hours.

After picking the lock he didn’t immediately open the door all the way. He slightly cracked it open, hoping the hinges were well oiled, and reached to his back pocket. 

As expected a blur of something started rushing towards the door and like a coil Robin whipped his arm out, releasing what had been in his hand.

“Alright, calm down,” he whispered to the gold blur as it chased after what had been flung and took the opportunity to slide inside the apartment and close the door behind him. “Oh you’re a big one aren’t you.” 

The big Labrador dog that had been lapping at the floor finally looked at him and turned its head curiously, but Robin knew what it was asking for. He reached back to the same pocket as before and took out some more treats, this time holding them in his hand. 

“Come on. You… slobbery creature.” The dog happily approached and accepted the treats shamelessly. “There’s a good boy.” Once the dog sat in front of him, tail thumping expectantly, Robin was positive he had won him over and it wouldn’t cause any trouble.

He stared at his glove, still dripping dog drool and he winced. He thought dogs were alright, but from afar. He wiped his hands on the dogs fur and looked at his tag.

“Alright, uh, Costco? Weird name for a dog but alright… Don’t make trouble for me now, you hear Costco?”

The dog started panting, as if it was smiling at him. Robin squinted. He’d take that as a yes.

He turned his attention now to the rest of the apartment and started looking around, Costco following closely enough he almost tripped him two times.

There isn’t much in the apartment. Two beds, a single size mattress or one person and a dog sized mat for one dog. There isn’t a bookcase nor space for one but the floor is littered with boxes full of files, most of them seemingly about the pharmaceutical company O’Hare used to work for, CENIT. He didn’t have the time to snoop so he left them alone for now.

As he approached the bed he tripped on something. At first he thought it had been Costco tangling itself on his legs again, whimpering for more treats but it was a laptop charger.

He flipped the covers off the bed and looked around. No laptop in sight.

“Hmm… That’s… odd. Why is it odd?”

Costco whined.

“Not now, boy. I mean… it’s not that odd that it’s not here. It’s a laptop… he probably took it with him to work.” He crouched and looked under the bed. There was nothing but dirty socks and a magazine. “Except… it wasn’t in his car, so then what—?”

Costco started barking and Robin turned to quiet it down. As he did, he met a silenced gun trained on his temple.

“You’re not Costco.” Robin said right as the man shot the gun. He narrowly got out of the way by twisting backwards and kicking the man’s arm up.

To the side Costco was now growling, rushing at the attacker to bite at his leg.

“Get offa me you stupid mutt!” The man exclaimed, the gun now pointed at the dog.

A second man, dressed in the same black clothes as the first must have heard the noise as he rushed in and immediately rushed at Robin.

Robin clutched at Costco’s collar from the ground and pulled him away right as the gun went off a second time. He twisted his body to kick the second man back as he got up to a crouch.

“I wasn’t expecting company. Sorry, it’s a bit messy!” He grabbed the fallen bed covers under the first guys feet and pulled, making him fall backwards, knocking into the other guy. “Let me clean up a little, will you?”

The first guy was enraged, and sometime in the tussle he had let his gun fall off his hand. He looked around frantically for it but his partner seemed to have other ideas. 

“Don’t bother with him now! Let’s just be done here and go” he said, pulling at the other man’s collar.

“You’re leaving so soon? Let me offer you some refreshments!” Robin said, throwing the dogs water bowl at the men, nailing one in the forehead.

“YOU’RE DEAD!”

“Leave it! Let’s go!” The man said, but he leveled the gun towards Robin and took a shot, probably to buy time.

Robin easily ducked out of the way but his breath caught when he heard a high pitched whimper from behind him. The dog was already bleeding from somewhere but it was still moving, so he scrambled after the men.

They had already made it to the stairs when he stopped at the door. “Wait. Wait, wait. He said ‘be done here’ done doing what?” He turned to look back into the apartment where Costco was shakily trying and failing to get to its feet.

What did they do? What had they done in the short amount of time they’d been in there? Shoot Costco? That can’t be it… 

Tim’s eyes widened as an idea took root. He could be wrong, but he’d rather take his chances than have regrets later.

He looked out to the hallway where neighbors were poking their heads out of their own apartments, pointing at him and murmuring.

“EVERYONE, OUT THE BUILDING NOW!” He bellowed in his best Robin voice.

People looked at him with shock but they didn’t make any move to leave. Robin didn’t have any time to play games so he threw down some pellets on the ground and they cracked loudly like gunshots. The people flinched and started rushing out.

He was about to follow when he remembered the dog in the apartment and went back in. He opened the window and took a quick look down. It was a big drop but not big enough. He ducked back in and hoisted the large dog on his shoulder and backed up a few steps and took a deep breath.

“Hold on, Costco!”

He ran as fast as he could while holding a sixty pound dog and dived out of the window. Following immediately after the entire apartment exploded in a wave of heat and noise.

Robin had other things to worry about at the moment as the ground was coming in fast. He shot his grapple, though they were too heavy and too far down already to be pulled up, so he twisted his hand to use the grapple to swing them across the street where he let go, falling on his back right onto an awning.

It wasn't even close to a perfect landing but the recoil of the impact was lessened significantly with his cape and armor. He let the momentum roll him down and flipped onto the street, his knees almost buckling under the weight of the dog he was still carrying.

“You gotta lose a few pounds, bud.” Robin told Costco, finally laying him down on the ground as a crowd of people were torn between looking at him and the apartment above, spitting smoke towards the already grey sky.

He checked the dog and was glad to find the wound was superficial, nothing but a scratch. In the distance he could hear the sirens approaching and he didn't miss any time looking around the crowd for the two suspects. However the street was a mess of faces and there were still people evacuating the building, he feared the perpetrators had mingled with the crowd and had probably already gotten away.

He decided not to linger any more than he had to, and with a final pat to Costco's head he jumped, grabbing hold of the awning and flipped himself up. With a few warm up jumps he leaped towards his still swinging grapple and retrieved it, soon he left the scene.

That was a completely befuddling incident, but at least his hunch had paid off somewhat. Though now he just had more questions than answers.

As he was flipping in the air, still getting away from the scene of the billowing smoke he caught a commotion a few streets to the south. Before he was able to tell what the problem was he witnessed his second explosion of the day.

It wasn’t just one small spark this time either. An entire floor burst with the force of the blast, raining glass on anyone unlucky enough to be standing below. He still had some stinging injuries from the fall earlier, but he didn’t miss any time and rushed towards the scene.


	2. Chapter 2

Robin arrived as fast as he could to the building and perched on a rooftop across the street from it. He was shocked to find the police were already there, holding a few handcuffed people against their cruisers. Now that was an unusual sight. Police response times on a good day were never this fast. 

Perhaps they had been tipped? That couldn't be it, he thought, shaking his head, if there had been a bomb threat the first one to know about it would have been Batman.

Unless Batman  _ had _ known and was already inside the floor where the explosion happened, combing for clues.  _ That _ wouldn't be unusual. Guy loved to keep people in the dark.

He reached to a pouch on his left side and retrieved a spyglass to study the scene before getting too close.

First, he looked where the explosion had happened. It was clear which floor it had been, as the seventh floor of the glassy skyscraper was bare of any of its floor to ceiling windows. Two floors parallel to it also had a few missing windows, but that was probably due to the shock of the explosion. Smoke was flowing from somewhere, probably papers and computers caught on fire with the blast and immediately taken care of by the sprinklers. He couldn't see any movement from the building so he figured everyone had made it out safe somehow, so he'd check it out later.

Down below it was true chaos. People littered the streets and the firefighters were barely able to herd the people away from the building. The cops on the other hand had already made many arrests, but that didn't quite make sense to him. Such a large amount of suspects for a targeted attack like this? How would they have known who to pick up in this sort of mess?

He’d have to go over the arrests later today. He felt like something bigger was going on. But right now he had a crime scene to investigate.

He pocketed the spyglass and backed up from the edge. With a running start he took a leap and spread his cape, which helped him glide down to the now open floor where the explosion had happened. He rolled to a stop and kept himself low.

Robin didn’t miss any time and patched into his communicator. “Agent A.”

“ _ Ah, Master Robin. What a surprise to hear from you at this hour. I could have sworn you were occupied with something else. _ ”

Keeping himself low to avoid inhaling any smoke he replied, “No time to explain. I’m at a site of an explosion down the Upper West, between King street and Miller, can’t miss it.” He approached the wall where a fire extinguisher was encased and took it, taking care of the areas still ablaze that the sprinklers couldn’t handle.

“ _ And pray tell what were you doing all the way over there? _ ”

“Working a lead, unrelated. It couldn’t wait.”

“ _ I’m on my way. _ ” A third voice reported. Apparently Batman had also been in on the call. “ _ What do you have? _ ”

“ _ I feel we should address the situation of skipping school to go out gallivanting, sir. _ ”Alfred tried.

“I’m thinking plastic bomb,” Tim said with a smile.

“ _ Oh, who am I kidding. _ ” Alfred complained, more to himself than to them.

“The area of the blast seems controlled, minimal property damage,” he continued, passing by toppled rows of office furniture singed by the blast and the fire. “The bulk of it was the windows, all shattered on one side on this floor.” He crouched down where he figured the explosion had come from based on the direction the blast had spread. “Someone set the bomb inside a printer,” he said, turning over a blackened bit of plastic, “probably set off remotely, but couldn’t have been from too far.”

“ _ Inside job? _ ”

Robin got to his feet and walked towards the window to look down. “Maybe. For some reason the police made a  _ lot _ of arrests, I—“ he stopped talking as he spotted something odd.

“ _ Robin. _ ” Batman warned.

Across the street, on the very rooftop he’d been perching on not too long ago, was a red blur getting ever so smaller.

“We got a runner.” He pulled out his grapple in record time and shot it up. “On the rooftops, heading northeast. Dressed in red, going fast.” Robin landed on the rooftop and rushed to catch up. “I’m in pursuit.”

“ _ I’ll meet you there. Proceed carefully. _ ” Robin nodded, even though Batman couldn’t see it. He was already too immersed in the chase.

Whoever they were, was good. They weren’t as acrobatic and agile as Robin but it didn’t seem to be their first rodeo. The height at which they were parkouring away didn’t seem to bother them either.

Still, they were good, but not good enough.

He stopped looking at the figure running away and instead looked at the path ahead of them, predicting their possible routes with their skill level and found a path of his own to cut them off.

The runner almost ran into him as he dropped from a billboard right in front of them.

They both stared for a moment.

Robin hadn’t seen this face in a long while, even before his ‘sabbatical’. Or rather than a face, it was a familiar white mask.

“Anarky?” He hadn’t meant to say it as a question, but he was genuinely surprised.

“Robin.” The runner, Anarky, replied derisively. He was wearing his usual blood red clothes, with a sharp A carved in black front and center. His face was concealed by a completely white mask, with two simple holes for his eyes. His flowing blond hair was held down by his hat. And he didn’t sound happy to see him. 

“Nice colors,” he noted, pointing at Robins own uniform with his chin, “decided to plagiarize me?” 

During his year away he’d changed the original Robin colors for a combination of red and black, for personal reasons. He didn’t appreciate the comment. “I see you finally grew into the suit, or is your head still a dummy to add to the height?”

“I grew,” he said, sounding amused. “Can’t say the same about you, though.” He tilted his head, almost mockingly.

Robin decided that was enough banter already and took a step towards him. “Why were you running?”

“Why were you chasing?” He asked airily, his arms spread like a magician.

Robin’s eyebrow twitched under his domino mask. He’d worked both with and against Anarky in the past a few times, so he knew him to be cooperative when he wanted to and obnoxious the rest of the time, so he figured they could talk a bit instead of going straight to the ass kicking. 

So far his gut was leaning towards ass kicking and his brain desperately wanted to agree.

“The explosion, were you involved?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He said nonchalantly.

“Running away from an explosion site? Smells rotten to me.” He wasn’t getting any answers so he decided to push some buttons. “Who are you working with?”

“I don’t work for  _ anyone _ .” Anarky said, annoyed. His hands were clenched to fists.

Robin took a step forward, taking advantage that he’d been slightly rattled.

“And you’ve don’t usually kill people either, it’s not your MO, is it? So then that scientist...” he said, as if talking to himself but clearly wanting Anarky to hear.

Anarky didn’t reply but he had stilled slightly. Somehow Robin could tell he was looking intently at him, even though the mask concealed his eyes.

“You… Don’t get in my way, Robin.” He said, his tone growing serious. “I’m not afraid to take you down if you become a nuisance.”

“I’m not so sure you could!” Robin said, shooting out an arm to grab at him but Anarky ducked just out of his grasp. They traded a few blows, though Anarky couldn’t get past his defensive moves. 

Unexpectedly, he grabbed Robin’s arm as he punched out and twirled him around. What happened next was that a bola wrapped around him; then, he was pushed to the edge of the roof where Anarky held him by his cape. He was forced to stand on the tip of his toes or else risk losing balance and meeting the ground up close and personal.

Looking down at his binds he saw the bat shaped ends and could more or less guess what had happened. This was confirmed when Anarky spoke.

“Any funny moves and I drop him.”

Robin couldn’t see behind him, as he was tightly wrapped into a burrito with the wire of the bolas but he guessed Batman was probably frowning.

“Ah- what did I say?” He said, letting Robins cape go for a moment before catching it again, probably in response to Batman trying to get closer. “Here’s the deal, you give me some space so I can go and I leave you your present here.” He pulled Robin back slightly as a show of good faith. “You don’t want to risk him falling when his wings are tied, do you?”

Robin looked in front of him. The fall wasn’t that big. It was probably a five floor building. He probably could make it safely to the ground with his eyes closed. He didn’t know if he could say the same with half his limbs out of commission.

“I knew we could do business.” Anarky said, pleased. “Don’t be stingy now” he encouraged.

He figured Batman had backed up significantly, so he turned his head slightly to address Anarky. “Just drop me already. He’s not going to go any farther.”

“What makes you think I’m going to drop you? I’m a man of my word.”

“I know you know if you let me down here he’s simply going to catch you before you can even say the V in Vendetta. But if you drop me, he’s going to have to catch me and you’d have more time to escape, you’re not stupid.”

Anarky seemed to think about this and chuckled. Robin felt him inch closer and now his voice was a whisper in his ear. “You know me too well, that’s no good.”

The next moment, Robin was pushed off the roof.

It was only a moment where the wind rushed at him at a mighty speed, his breath catching infinitesimally in his throat, but he couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t shock or fear what he felt in that moment as he plummeted towards the ground, as Batman caught him in his arms and swung him to safety.

It felt like a thrill. 

Back in the cave both Alfred and Batman were staring at him expectantly. Dick was absent, he probably had gone back to bed after he’d left for school.

“So, uh, wild day, huh?” Tim said awkwardly, scratching his head.

“Explain yourself, Master Timothy.” Alfred said, deciding to start the interrogation himself, as Batman seemed perfectly happy staying silent. It was a bit worrisome that he had yet to take off the cowl.

“Well, you see. The car accident last night—“

Alfred cut him off. “About leaving during school hours without any prior warning, if you could.”

“It, well, it’s related. I swear!” Tim said, holding his hands up at Alfreds disbelieving expression. “I wanted to check out a hunch.”

“And it couldn’t have waited?”

“It was bothering me… and in the end it turned out I was right! If I hadn’t gone there when I did, these two dudes would have burned evidence at that apartment and probably killed the dog too.”

“You could have asked for me or Nightwing to look, you didn’t have to skip class.” Batman said, finally breaking his silence, though his tone was as cold as ice.

“How would I have explained? ‘Hey Batman can you go check out this random place? it’s giving me a bad vibe’? Not even I could figure out what felt wrong until I got there.”

“I trust you.” Batman said simply and it somehow made Tim feel embarrassed.

He dipped his head slightly. “I know.”

“You can’t go running around like that, if something had happened…” Batman tilted his head slightly in an aborted motion to look away but Tim didn’t need to see to know what he’d tried to look at. 

Jason’s case was still there. It was less prominent now, pushed into its own private corner, but like north on a compass Tim always knew where it was.

“I know. And... I was careful.”

“You weren’t. What happened with Anarky was careless and stupid.”

Tim recoiled at being called stupid and said, “I wasn’t—“

“Did you forget we could hear everything you said?”

Tim’s eyes widened and he unconsciously reached to his ear where he could feel his communicator still in place. He looked between Alfred and Batman and after a moment Alfred cleared his throat.

“All due respect, I did think it was rather… misguided.”

“It was irresponsible. You do not taunt criminals when they have the upper hand.”

“But he didn’t—“

“It was fine this time because I was there and I could get to you in time but you can’t be sure that’ll be the case the next time.”

“I was working an angle.”

Batman crossed his arms.

“Really! I know how Anarky works, the kid has the ego the size of a dwarf star. I could have gotten out of that bind by myself.” Probably. “I wanted him to feel like he outsmarted us.”

“Why?”

“He knows something. And he’s stubborn. If we had just captured and questioned him he would have clamped up tighter than a pickle jar. If we let him go we can follow his trail and see where it leads.” Tim frowned. “I mentioned O’Hare to him and he seemed to know who I was talking about. I have a feeling these two incidents are somehow connected, and Anarky is right in the thick of it.”

By the end of his explanation he was looking right into Batman’s white lenses, trying to convey his conviction like a beam, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“And the evidence?” Batman simply said

“I… didn’t find any.” He admitted, his shoulders slumping slightly, then he hurried to add, “I have a thought that these goons went there to find anything they failed to get from the crash or to make sure they had all of it.”

“Why do you think this man had anything of interest?” Batman said, walking to the computer and Tim moved to follow, brightening up. It seemed he was out of trouble for now. He gave Alfred an apologetic smile and stood next to Batman.

“It’s his laptop. It wasn’t in his apartment and it wasn’t in his car. He was probably on the way home from work when he crashed but there wasn’t anything in his car other than his body and a few bits of trash. No laptop, no briefcase, no cellphone or wallet, no nothing. Clean.”

Bruce started typing and brought out the information Tim had found the other day. “Why do we think there’s a conspiracy and it’s not just some opportunistic thieves.”

“I wasn’t sure of that either until earlier today when these guys suddenly decided to trash his place. You don’t go to those lengths unless the guy has something on you that you don’t want to get out.”

Batman nodded and looked over the information. 

“You were right, there is a connection.”

Tim’s eyes widened. He’d found a connection already? He looked at the screen where the news about the second explosion was playing. It didn’t take long for him to understand what Batman had meant.

On the screen was the view of the building from the ground level, some amateur video recording taken from a phone, showing the moment the explosion happened. But what was important was the strip scrolling beneath the footage. It read “MAJOR EXPLOSION AT CENIT PHARMACEUTICA OFFICES. POLICE MAKE SEVERAL ARRESTS. MOTIVES OF TERROR ATTACK STILL UNKNOWN.”

On a different screen the dossier he had crafted for O’Hare was highlighted. “Occupation: Quality Control Research Manager for CENIT.”

He looked at Batman. “I guess I have my job cut out for me.”

Batman nodded and got to his feet but paused for a moment. Then, he put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and said “You can work the case,” Tim mentally cheered, “after school only.” Tim blinked.

Batman looked pointedly to Tim’s back and he turned to look. Alfred was holding his backpack in his hand with a sour face, Stephanie standing next to him with a bright yet confused smile.

“What’d I miss?” She asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noo don’t throw me off a building you’re so sexy ahah


	3. Chapter 3

“Woooow. Bats was right, that  _ was _ stupid.” 

Tim looked up from his books to glare at her. “It was a tactical misdirection.”

“Right.” 

Stephanie had been sitting upside down on the couch, listening to him retell what had happened. Her legs were hooked to the back of the couch and her blond hair was pooling down to the floor. She stuffed a handful of gummy worms in her mouth and mused.

“I’m amazed he’s still letting you work the case.”

“Yeah, well, I was very convincing.” He said from his spot on the floor, scribbling some random notes onto his notebook.

“Damn right,” she said, turning herself upright. “If it had been me I’d been fired right then and there.” She laughed.

Tim smiles awkwardly. Stephanie liked to make jokes about that but it made him feel just a bit guilty. Or a whole lot guilty.

“No, well, I mean... he’s been a lot more grounded since we did that whole pilgrimage thing. “ Tim said, though he wasn’t sure it made anything better.

“Yeah. It’s been a long time, we’ve all changed.” She said solemnly, lost in thought. Then she smiled and walked up towards him, sitting down on the floor with him. “I mean look at you.” She ran her fingers through his hair and it made his skin tingle. “Your hair is longer than mine!”

“It’s not.” He said, slapping her hand away and smoothing his hair back in place. “And what’s with everyone and my hair, my hair is fine.”

“Sure.” She said, grinning.

He glared at her and realized how close their faces were, sitting shoulder to shoulder just like the old times. “You know,” he said, his voice unconsciously turning into a whisper. “We could… we could work the case together.”

“Yeah?” She said, matching his tone with a mischievous smile. 

“Sure. I could use the help.”

Stephanie reached her hand towards his face and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m sure you do.” She said, her eyes gleaming before she lightly tapped his cheek and leaned back. “But I can’t, this whole thing is your mess, no offense.” Fair enough. “Besides, you’re the one who said needed some time.”

Tim held his cheek and tried not to look too disappointed. “It’s not like that. This is just, professional.” He cleared his throat. “Business only. Friends helping friends”

Stephanie laughed and patted his back. “Tell you what, if you need backup you call me, but I don’t want anything to do with you gaslighting a guy with a Guy Fawkes obsession.” She tapped the books spread on the table and got to her feet. “Or your history homework.”

Tim groaned, watching her go back to her spot at the couch in front of him. He was about to expose her traitorous ways when his phone pinged.

“Finally!” He said, then scrambled to unbury his laptop from the pile of books. 

“What’s that?” Stephanie said through a mouthful of gummy worms.

Tim typed into his keyboard bringing up several windows to the screen. “I coded a notification system connected to the GCPD case files. If anyone looks for information on certain words or people, I get a ping.” He looked up at Stephanie and grinned. “Do you know what kind of crime Anarky is the most famous for?”

“Hacking...” she said, nodding approvingly. “I see, so you expect him to search for police reports and that’ll help you figure out what information he knows or doesn’t know... Clever bird.” She praised. “But, how did you know he was going to search at all?”

“It’s what I would have done. Besides, I sew a seed in his head. He knew about O’Hare, but he didn’t seem to know he was killed. He’d want to know more about it.” He pulled up the logs and found the name of the person accessing the file. “Hello, officer Christopher Kenneth.”

“Well then it’s not him?”

Tim shook his head. “No, it  _ is _ him. He’s giving himself away.” He pulled up officer Kenneth's information. “He’s using a real officers login info, but the stream of files he’s accessing isn’t right.”

Stephanie got up and leaned her head over to look at the screen. “What’s wrong with it?”

Tim pointed at the screen. “Look, first he opened the file on O’Hares accident. He’s clearly trying to confirm what I told him. And now he’s looking at the list of suspects from the second bombing—that I’m sure he caused. That’s completely wrong.”

“I don’t see it.” 

Tim opened one of his own programs and started cracking down on Anarky’s IP. It was a bit tricky, the guy knew how to build his defenses. “It’s simple. I never told him O’Hares name.”

“Oh, shit.” Stephanie said, wide eyed. “So then, you think he knew O’Hare?”

“Yeah. Somehow he knew who I meant when I said ‘the scientist’. Second, he completely ignored the fact that O’Hares apartment exploded.”

Stephanie hummed and sat back, resting her chin on her hands. “So he either knew about the bombing beforehand or…”

“Or he knew he wouldn’t find anything there. Damn it, Anarky.” He cursed, as his cracking kept getting blocked. He shut down his program and slammed his laptop shut.

“What’s up?” Stephanie said startled.

“Ran out of time, I couldn’t let him figure out I was onto him so I pulled out.” He quickly stuffed his books into his backpack and looked at Stephanie. “So, are you coming or not?”

Stephanie hummed before smiling. “Lead the way.”

Robin led Spoiler to a recently started construction site in Old Gotham. The place still had a few workers on ground level, lit up by a few work lights scattered about, however the structure itself was empty. 

Robin paced while tapping on his phone, walking on the steel beams while Spoiler leaned on one, looking down on the small forms of the workers.

“I think you got led by your nose, boy wonder.” She said, crossing her arms and looking back at him.

“I traced the signal around this area, it’s not exact because I ran out of time. But I’m fairly certain there’s something here.” He finally looked up and searched around. 

“I don’t think this is prime real estate for a super villain hideout in my opinion.” She joked, then pointed at a sign on the ground. “Maybe we should try again in...” she squinted, “...estimate, two years. Hey they’re building a mall here, did you know?”

“I wasn’t expecting to find his hideout, he’s not an amateur.” Spoiler rolled her eyes at this. “No, you’ll be surprised how much you can give away by lying.” Robin dropped down a level and exclaimed “Ah-ha!”

Spoiled followed after him and watched him curiously as he approached the still raised lift. “What is it?” She asked, looking over his shoulder and immediately barking a laugh before she was able to hold it in. “I think you underestimated him.”

Attached to a steel beam was a sticky note and a small chip with a blinking light. The note said “Last chance. Remember I don’t make empty threats.” Signed with Anarky's unmistakable A.

Robin ripped the note and felt the urge to crumple it in his hand. Instead, he stuffed it in a pocket safely and told Stephanie. “Like I said, he thinks he’s leading me astray but he’s still leaving a trail.”

“Just admit you got got.” Stephanie laughed, patting him on the shoulder.

Robin glared her way but didn’t turn. He could feel his cheeks warm up in embarrassment, and though it was dark he didn’t want Spoiler to see. 

He approached the chip and inspected it up close. “It’s transmitting or receiving a signal. It’s probably what my program mistook as Anarky's actual connection.” 

He considered taking it but Anarky had just blown up a building earlier that day so he didn’t want to do anything stupid. Who knew what that guy was capable of.

As he was thinking this, Spoiler patted his shoulder urgently. He turned to look and saw her pointing somewhere below. “Something’s going on there.”

On the ground a fight had broken out among the construction workers. However, looking closely it seemed that the commotion had been caused by one guy who was chasing after the other panicked workers and beating them down.

“Let’s go.” Robin said and they both dropped down from the steel structure, silently behind the lights. He held out a hand to signal Spoiler to watch first.

Up close it was easier to see the man, another construction worker, was crazedly pouncing on other men and punching and kicking wildly. A few of the workers were trying to pry him off the victims but they themselves got punched.

There was a number of workers circling the man as he attacked anyone who came near him while others were running off the site..

“Mark! Mark! What’s gotten into you man! Calm down!” One of the men shouted, holding his hands out to appease him, but the man continued to grunt and cry out. 

“NO MORE! NO MORE!” Mark screamed, his voice raw and almost guttural. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” He approached a workbench and picked up a drill, pointing it at the other workers who immediately took a step back.

Robin nodded at Spoiler. They couldn’t let this escalate.

Spoiler ran forward and climbed on an excavator, climbed up the arm and leapt, landing in front of the man. “Sorry sir, unsafe use of equipment is an OSHA violation,” she said to the startled man and kicked the drill from his hand.

“Don’t hurt him!” The worker from before said, distracting Spoiler for a moment. Mark took the opportunity and tackled Spoiler to the ground.

“I don’t think he cares if he hurts  _ me _ !” She kicked him off her and got to her feet. But Mark had already recovered and was throwing punches. 

Robin dropped down behind him and kicked his feet under him but Mark was undeterred, scrambling up and clawing at Robin.

“Is this guy even human?!” She said, intercepting the man’s arm and threw him over her shoulder, slamming him down hard on the ground, though it didn’t seem to faze him at all.

Mark struggles in her grasp trying to get to his feet kicking and screaming. “LET ME GO! LET ME GO! NO MORE!”

“Then calm down!” She replied, attempting to keep her hold on him. 

“Spoiler!” Robin said throwing the end of a wire in Spoilers direction. “Let him go, get back!”

At Robin's word, Spoiler immediately backed out with a flip, picking up the twine on her way. 

As Mark got to his feet, a flashbang went off, making him scream and cover his eyes. Robin took that opening to unwind the rest of the twine from his utility belt and start running around him. Spoiler took his lead and ran the other way.

Soon enough Mark was immobilized, his arms and legs tied together. Spoiler kicked his back and made him fall on the ground. “Yeehaw!” She cheered, one foot still keeping the man down.

“IT HURTS! IT HURTS!!” Mark screamed, his face pressed against the dirt.

“What are you doing?! You’re hurting him!” The worker from before said, approaching warily.

“Man, no one ever worries about us.” Spoiler complained, rotating her shoulder. “He’s fine, we're not doing anything to him.”

As Mark continued to scream none of the workers seemed very convinced.

“Something’s off about him,” Robin said, crouching next to his head and looking him over. He flicked him between the eyes and hummed.

“You don’t have to tell  _ me _ that.”

“Listen, Mark is not a bad guy. You gotta believe me.”

“Man, Gerald, he tried to drill a hole on us!” Another worker said and the bulk of them seemed to agree.

“But you guys saw it! He was fine just before!”

“This is Gotham, kid. He probably snapped and went fucking crazy. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m gonna call the cops.”

“It's odd.” Robin whispered, shining a light on Mark's eyes. “His eyes are moving all over the place but he doesn’t seem to react to small movements.”

“What’s, uh,” she said, keeping an eye on the arguing workers. “what's that mean?” 

Robin shook his head. “It looks like rapid eye movement.” He clicked off the light and looked up at Stephanie. “It's as if he’s asleep.”

After letting the first responders take Mark to get medical attention—and directing Spoiler to follow the ambulance just in case—Robin took Gerald to the back of the site to ask him some questions before the police ask for him.

“Tell me about Mark.”

“Is he in trouble? I swear he’s a good man, he didn’t mean to hurt nobody.”

“It’s a fact that he did hurt people though. That’s an undeniable fact.” Robin said with his arms crossed and Gerald squirmed under his gaze. 

“Mark, hes… he’s a hard worker, okay? We got this job together. We’re roommates. Life ain’t easy for either of us but Marks always pushing me forward. He’s going to vocational school during the day, y‘know? But he still helps me out when I’m short in cash. There’s no nicer man, I swear.”

“Then how do you explain what happened back there.” Robin asked, gesturing with his chin where the police were questioning workers. “Didn’t seem very nice.”

“I-I-I don’t know man. One minute he was fine and the next he just…” he looked at Robin pleadingly. “That there wasn’t the Mark I know. I don’t know…”

“Alright…” Robin herald his chin in one hand, thinking. “Tell me, did Mark receive any calls or any messages before this?”

Gerald shook his head, “I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Robin, I got good news and bad news.” Spoiler said through the communicator. “Good news is our guy didn’t cause any trouble, fell asleep right on the gurney.”

“Please tell me you can help him.” Gerald said. “ _ Please _ . He doesn’t deserve this. He’s a good man.”

Robin opened his mouth to reply with some assurances when Spoiler continued. “Bad news is, he doesn’t seem like he’s going to wake up any time soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a complex game of cat and mouse.


	4. Chapter 4

A young man dressed in a striking red suit walked into the third precinct of the Gotham Police. 

His stride wasn’t interrupted by the droves of people roaming the entrance, including harried looking cops and nervous looking civilians. Easily weaving his way through, suitcase in hand, he reached the cop working at the reception desk.

The cop was directing orders on the phone and fishing papers from a disorderly stack surrounding him on all sides.

The man leaned on the desks counter and placed his suitcase on top of it. He knocked on the wood of the desk to get the cops attention.

“Guido Weaving, Esquire.” The man said, his voice dripping with the air of a pretentious Harvard graduate. “I’m here to talk to the CENIT case suspects.”

“Don’t you see I’m busy?” The cop barked, before returning to his phone. “No, I’m not talking to you!”

“That’s quite alright, I can wait.” He paused. “Though I don’t think the District Attorney will be too happy about being delayed with such an important case...” He said, fishing out his phone from his jackets inner pocket and started scrolling lazily. The cop was now looking at him full of contempt. “So what will it be?”

“...What did you say your name was?”

“Weaving.” He pocketed his phone again and grinned wolfishly. “Deputy district attorney.”

The cop hesitated before typing something on his old computer. He read the screen and glanced at Weaving with a small frown. He searched through a cabinet under the desk and slid a visitors badge towards him.

The cop made a beckoning sign to someone behind Weaving and a distressed looking cop—with his hat askew and his eyes wide behind his slowly sliding glasses— approached the desk, holding a heavy looking box of papers.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Weaving.” The desk cop said. “Officer uh—“ 

“Jim.” The rookie cop said, smiling sheepishly. “Jim Draper.” He held his hand out towards Weaving with much effort, as he was still holding the box of papers.

Weaving looked at his hand unimpressed, with no intention to take it.

The desk cop said. “Right, Officer Draper here will show you the way.” He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “You’d think the precincts on fire with how much running around there’s been these days.”

Weaving gave a polite short laugh and turned to look at Officer Draper, clipping his visitors badge on his breast pocket. “Shall we?”

The officer startled slightly and said “Of-Of course! This way, this way!”

Weaving picked up his suitcase and followed after the other man. He expected a quiet walk but Officer Draper seemed adamantly chatty.

“Deputy District Attorney,” Officer Draper said with wonder. “You look so young and already you’ve achieved this much… it’s impressive!”

“Yes, well. I’m good at what I do.” Said Weaving with a stony face.

“I could never do that. I’m probably your age and all I’ve done is finish my training to be a cop.” He laughed a bit. “And I think just about anyone can do that.”

Weaving looked at Officer Draper as they walked through the station's corridors, that had grown slightly quieter the further in they went. He considered he might as well make small talk. “And was it worth it?”

“Um, well, hard to say.” The officer tried to push up his glasses but was unable to reach due to the box threatening to fall from his hands. “I wanted to help people. But it’s hard to know where to start, so I figured I’d work under someone who does.” 

“You could have been a firefighter.” Weaving said.

Officer Draper laughed. “No, no. I’m afraid of heights you see. This is the last thing I could think of. But all I managed to do is watch the line of people I can’t help just get longer.” He laughed again, more meekly this time. “Oh! But what am I saying to you right now. So embarrassing.”

Weaving stopped in his tracks and the officer stopped just a few steps after, looking back at him. “No, it’s alright, Officer…”

“Draper. But, uh, you can call me Jim.”

“Jim, then.” Weaving closed the distance between them and said. “You have a good attitude, and you were going on the right direction. Helping people is good.” He reached out and adjusted Jim’s glasses on his face. He noticed the long bottom lashes underneath the icy blue eyes. “But I don’t think you should be wasted in a place where you can’t flourish. If you know what I mean.”

“I-I’m afraid I don’t,” Jim stuttered, his cheeks dusting with faint embarrassment. “Um, what are you suggesting, I…”

Weaving backed up and adjusted his suit. “ _ That _ you can figure out yourself. I simply think you could be more than a… pencil pushing cop.” Jim nodded and Weaving gestured to the corridor. They continued walking.

“It’s just through this door.” Jim said opening a door.

“Thank—“ Weaving blinked as he found the door lead to a janitors closet. He turned back towards Jim to ask what was the meaning of this when Jim pushed him into the closet, flicking the door closed with his foot.

Jim flipped Weaving around and slammed him against the door. “Say, this is awfully forward of you, Officer.” Weaving grunted when he heard the click of handcuffs on his wrists behind his back.

The Officer peeled him off the door and threw him to the ground, making him fall on his ass.

“I’m done playing games with you, Anarky.”

Weaving's face turned from shock to delight, his smile showing a hint of teeth. “Robin. I should have known.”

“Yeah. I wish you  _ had _ known before you decided to give me your little pitch.” He took a metallic mop and jammed it on the door handle. “What was that, by the way? ‘Leave the police, join the revolution’? That ever works for you?”

Even though he’d been caught red handed Anarky was the image of composure. “Sorry, you didn’t strike me as someone who was very bright, officer.” He adjusted himself to sit more comfortably as Robin circled him like a proper bird of prey. “You played the part  _ too _ well, I’d say. Any pebbles of truth buried in there?”

“What are you playing at, Machin?”

“That’s unfair, I don’t even know your name. I might have to guess. How’s Drake sound?”

Robin tried not to react but Anarky's smile was already widening. “I have to say, ‘Jim Draper’? It’s like you’re asking to be found out.” Robin shot his hand out and pulled Anarky forward by his tie. “You think no one has access to this information?” Anarky said, his tone growing cold. “Only reason I don’t doxx you is because I have bigger fish to fry.”

“Like CENIT pharmaceutical?”Anarky's teeth clacked as he shut his mouth. “What were you planning on doing here today, Anarky?”

Anarky's green eyes met with Robin’s greys, his eyebrows pressed downwards as he kept obstinate silence.

Robin let him go with a push and turned his attention to his suitcase. “Alright you don’t want to talk? How about I take a guess?” He took the suitcase from the floor and placed it in front of Anarky. “You were going to set a bomb off in the station and use the commotion to free the suspects the police arrested at the CENIT site. Simple yet effective. They’ve not been processed yet—there’s too many of them after all, and the precinct is a mess—so you figured you’d simply,” he flourished with one hand, “make them disappear.”

“I have no reason to do any of that.”

“Oh, but you do. The only reason these  _ innocent people  _ are here at all is because of  _ you _ .” Robin said, jabbing him with a finger. “You feel guilty. You claim to fight for the people so how could it ever be fair for them to take the fall for you?”

“Is that how you knew I’d come?”

“And when, too. You couldn’t risk taking too long either, could you?”

Anarky glared. “Even if you turn me in they won’t let these people go. They’ll think we worked together, no matter how much I tell anyone I worked alone. My word is worth as much as theirs. This is the only way.”

“This is the  _ stupid _ way, Anarky. I’ve never thought you to be this dumb.” He crouched so they could be at eye level. “You’re leaving a trail of destruction and what have you got to show for it? Nothing but the ruined lives of people you tried to save.” 

Robin looked down at the suitcase and opened it. It was full of papers, but once he removed the lining underneath he found a remote controlled bomb laying inside. He narrowed his eyes and closed the case again.

“What happens after you bust them out? They live in guilt? They get found out and charged for running away? Do you even know who these people are? Do you know who knows?”

Anarky laughed. “Look at you, all commanding. All knowing. Suddenly you think you know everything don’t you? But you hero types are all the same.” Anarky turned his nose up at him. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been working on this? And now suddenly there’s a dead body and a clear villain in front of you, so you think you can punch me down and call it a good day's work done?”

“You’re wrong.”

“How am I wrong!?” Anarky yelled, suddenly angry, his arms shaking as he struggled against the cuffs. “How am I wrong!? So what if I’m doing it the wrong way! At least I’m doing it! At least I tried to do something before people started to get hurt! Your reactive methods disgust me.” 

Robin was quiet for a moment. “But people did get hurt.”

Anarky lowered his head and his hair covered his face. “I’m not a perfect person. Just a sinner trying to repent. And what of it? I admit to my guilt,” he looked up slightly, “but admittance is not enough for me.”

Robin took a deep breath. He glanced at the door behind him then back at Anarky. “If you truly want to help these people then work with me.”

Anarky frowned. He hadn’t expected for Robin to say that.

“You clearly know more about this case than I do, I admit that.” Robin continued. “But if I put you in a cage there’s nothing to assure me you won’t get out and get in my way. So work with me now.”

“Why would I do that?” Anarky said in a low voice.

“I know about you Anarky. I know you have good intentions but you’ve never been given the chance to prove it. I want to give you that chance.”

“Why?”

Robin was quiet for a moment. “Yes or no?”

“I don’t work under anyone.”

“Neither do I.” Robin said seriously.

Anarky snorted. “We’ll see about that.”

“I take it that's a yes?” Robin said, getting to his feet.

“Uncuff me and I’ll give you an answer.”

Robin raised an eyebrow and exhaled. He circled Anarky and crouched to get to his hands only to find the cuffs were already in the ground. Anarky looked back and smirked, raising his hands in a shrug. 

Robin couldn’t help but huff a small laugh. They got to their feet and Anarky held his hand out. Robin took it and shook it once. 

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” Robin said, then stopped Anarky as he moved to the door. “Not through there. Sorry, I don’t trust you walking around here.”

“Fair enough. I do hate the pigs, who knows what I’d do when I see them. I might kill one.” He said, unsubtly looking at Robin's disguise.

“Very funny. Alright Spoiler, open up.”

At that moment a grate fell loudly on the floor and a black-masked, purple-hooded head poked out of the ceiling. 

“C'mon boys! I wanna get out of this damn vent already. Chop chop.” She said before sliding back out of view.

“You brought backup? I’m honored.”

“Well, you brought a bomb. I’d say we’re even.” Robin walked under the vent opening and laced his fingers together. “After you.”

Anarky gave him a mocking smile and jumped up, easily reaching to the entrance and pulling himself up.

“Show off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😏
> 
> Anarkys Alias is based on Guy (Guido) Fawkes and Hugo Weaving, the guy who played V in V for Vendetta, so him saying Jim Draper was too on the nose is hypocrisy.
> 
> He could have tried to bust out the people in a more subtle way but he just couldn’t pass the chance of turning a police precinct into a ball of fire. King.


	5. Chapter 5

“Bats is gonna kill you.” Spoiler told him as soon as they had time to talk in private.

They had climbed up to the roof of the police precinct and Robin had told Anarky to give them some space. 

“Batman doesn’t kill.” Robin said from behind the rooftop stairway access as he changed clothes. He’d been carrying his  _ real _ uniform in a box the whole time, just in case. It had been good cover before, since it lend itself to make him look busy.

“Yeah, well he might start!” Spoiler hissed at him, keeping an eye on Anarky.

“If he doesn’t know he can’t kill me.”

“When—and I  _ do _ mean  _ when— _ he finds out you’re doing this, do me a favor and keep my name out of it.” Spoiler grumbled. 

“You got it, boss.”

“You know, I doubt this is what he meant when he told you to get backup next time.” 

“I called you, though, didn’t I?” 

“I’m working my own case right now, remember?” She saw Anarky approach the edge of the roof and shouted “Hey! Stay put!” Anarky held his arms up and seemed amused by her tone. He stayed near the edge, watching the street below.

“Yeah. How’s that going by the way?”

“Bad. I got no leads on what’s wrong with Mark, and he hasn’t woken up yet.” She sighed. 

Robin hummed. “Alright. Thanks for coming today, anyways.”

“Yeah, don’t make it a habit to call me in at the last minute, I’m not an intern. How did you know when I arrived?”

“Dusty vents.” Robin said with a grunt as he pulled on a boot.

“Ah, the bane of my existence.”

“Yeah. Don’t let Batman hear you say that.”

Anarky seemed to run out of patience and looked back towards them. “You guys done talking about me yet?” He asked. “I don’t have all day.”

“In a minute.” Robin called back, putting on his cape and checking everything was in place. He then turned to Spoiler and handed her Anarky’s suitcase. “Take this to the cave, put it with the others.”

“I’m gonna start charging for these favors, boy wonder. They’re piling up.”

“Put it on my tab, then.” Robin said with a smile. “Let me know if you need any help with your thing.”

“Likewise.” She said, looking at Anarky as he approached them. After a nod and a two finger salute, she backwards dived out of the roof.

Anarky whistled. “She’s fire. Are you guys a thing or...”

“Dream on.” Robin said, stone faced. 

Anarky held his hands up. “Alright, alright. So?” He said, crossing his arms. “Now what?”

“Now you tell me what you know so we can get this over with.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“What?” Robin asked, shocked.

“Do you think I’m stupid? As soon as I give you all my info, what’s stopping you from cuffing me and taking the credit?”

“You’re a cynical piece of work, aren’t you?”

“Look who’s talking.” He said flatly, rubbing at his wrists. “So, I agree to  _ cooperate  _ with you, but I’ll be keeping my cards close to my chest, if you don’t mind.”

Robin sighed. “Alright then. Well start with my lead, in that case.” He looked around. “Let’s not talk here though.” He walked up to Anarky and handed him a piece of folded paper. “Meet me at this address at midnight,” Anarky snatched the paper from him. “do  _ not _ stand me up. Remember I’m giving you a chance to do good here, don't waste it.”

“Are you really in a position to make threats?” Anarky said with a grin. “After all, I have leverage.”

“It’s not a threat, it’s a deal.” Robin got up on his face and glared at him through his domino mask. “But if you think we can’t come back from something like that you’re dead wrong.” He was still shorter than Anarky but his tone made up for intensity. “At the end of the day you'll be a traitor whose words are empty, and I? I will still be Robin.” He suddenly shot his grapple gun, making Anarky flinch. “So watch yourself,  _ Machin _ . Don’t make me regret this.”

“Wait,” Anarky said at the last moment but Robin had already jumped off. “Wait!! How am I going to get down? I don’t have my gear!” He yelled at Robin’s retreating form. He sighed with his hands on his hips. “Great.”

There was a knock on the door of a quaint suburban home in Otisburg. After a moment a porch light lit up and the door was opened.

“Wow, you actually made it this time.” Zoanne Wilkins said hugging the door.

“You make me sound so bad when you say that,” Tim Drake said, adjusting the backpack slung on his arm. “May I come in? It’s kind of chilly out here.”

Zoanne stepped back to allow him to enter and took his jacket to put it away. “Well, I’m glad guilt tripping you worked but I’d rather not do it again.” 

Tim has been at Zoanne’s place previously so he didn’t need directions to the dining room, walking to the long table they always used for study sessions.

“I also would rather you don’t do that. Kinda scary!” He laughed quietly as he sat on one of the chairs.

“Oh, shush.” She tapped him in the arm as she crossed the room to sit in her usual place in front of him. “You looked like you needed the wake up call. You’ve been distracted these days.”

Tim didn’t look up as he set his books on the table. “I have a lot going on.”

“I didn’t think the life of the son of the richest man in the city would be this turbulent, but I should have known.”

Tim grinned. “I guess you could say that.”

“Does it…” she began then stopped, thinking better to herself. Tim looked up and raised an eyebrow. “It was a stupid question, nevermind.”

“No, no. We just started our study session.” Tim said solemnly. “There’s no stupid questions, go on.”

Zoanne laughed awkwardly. “No I was just wondering if it had anything to do with that blonde.”

Tim blinked, startled.  _ How does she know about Lonnie? _ was his first thought. “Uh, blond?” He smiled puzzled. “What blond? Ives?”

“Not Ives. That, girl. The girl that always makes you look like someone’s stepping on your hands whenever you see her.” Zoanne said, her voice growing quiet towards the end as she looked away in embarrassment. Like she couldn’t believe she was even bringing it up.

“Oh. Ohhh… No! No, no, no. Nooo, no...” He said, each ‘no’ spoken with a different intonation. “That’s… Stephanie Brown. She and I are, well, were, I mean, we  _ are— _ “

“Dating?”

“Friends.”

“Oh.”

“We did date, for a while.”

“Oh...”

They sat awkwardly in silence for a moment, not knowing how to break out of the current atmosphere. 

“Do I really look like—“

“Like someone’s pulling your toe nails with a crowbar? Yeah.”

“Bad visual there, Zoanne.” Tim said, wincing.

“Sorry.” She said, mirroring him.

Tim ran his hand through his hair. “Damn.”

“Yeah.” Zoanne folded her hands on top of her books, rubbing the back of her hands with her thumbs.

“So, to answer your question... It has nothing to do with Steph. Well, it… not all of it, I guess. She and I are a bit… complicated. I’ve just been really busy, it’s hard to keep up with my schedule and find time where there is none.”

“Is that why you’ve been sleeping in class more?”

“Bad habit of mine.” Tim laughed.

Zoanne looked troubled but then her face suddenly lit up. “Hold on.” She got up and walked to a cabinet at the end of the room, then returned with something in her hands. She placed it on the table and went back to her seat.

In front of Tim was a small green ampoule. He held it between his pointer and his thumb and looked at Zoanne with a raised brow.

“It's an energizing tincture, like a supplement. It’s drinkable and doesn’t taste too bad.”

“Energizing tincture?” Tim said, holding it up to the light. He didn’t know if the liquid was green or if the glass container was.

“Yeah, my dad takes them sometimes for when he’s got many long nights in a row. I’ve tried it a few times and it’s worked so far. Helps me keep active without becoming a zombie.” She laughed.

“Huh,” he said, “and it’s not just water and sugar?”

“I thought so too at first. I thought it was snake oil, you know? I couldn’t believe my dad had fallen for something like that. But since it works then there’s no problem.”

“And who did you say makes this?” 

“Uhh I don’t recall, but it did sound sort of like... Vicarious? Victorious?”

They both winced.

“Yeah I don’t blame you for thinking this was snake oil.” He lifted it up and put it away in his backpack. “Thanks though.”

“Sure. Now let’s get to it, shall we?” Zoanne said and they began reviewing the subjects they’d scheduled for the day.

Later that night Anarky landed on a rooftop, not too far from CENITs office building. One of the floors was covered in yellow tape that glistened even from this distance. His cape wrapped around his legs as the wind blew, like a snake coiling around prey and he stood there, waiting.

He didn’t have to wait too long as a voice suddenly came from behind him. “Took you long enough.” 

Anarky loathed to admit that he had flinched, but he tried to keep himself composed. “Why are we here?” 

“Didn’t you hear the culprit always returns to the scene of the crime?” Robin joked, coming out from under the shadow of a billboard.

“Are you going to keep making  _ jokes _ ?” Robin couldn't see Anarky's face under his white mask but judging by his tone he wasn’t very amused.

“You’ll get used to it. So—“

“I doubt it.” Anarky mumbled.

“So, CENIT pharmaceutical. You care to tell me how that happened?” He pointed to the floor with the blasted windows.

“If you can’t figure out that much then the Bats are grossly overestimated.” He said, crossing his arms. 

“I can easily figure out how to explode a building. In fact, anyone old enough to play with building blocks can do that in this city. No.” He walked forward to stand next to Anarky, his own cape fluttering beautifully in the wind. “What I’m asking is how did you clear the floor beforehand.” Anarky was quiet, so Robin continued, looking out towards the black glass office building. “An explosión this strong and not a single injury or loss of life. So, how did you do it?”

“Bedbugs.” Anarky said simply after a pause, then elaborated further. “Closed five entire floors with a fumigation notice.” He turned to Robin, and somehow he could tell he was grinning behind the white mask.

“Interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Robin started pacing behind Anarky, making him tilt his head to follow his movements behind his back without turning. Then he stopped and smiled. “You’re not very good at poker, are you Anarky?”

“On what account?” Anarky asked through gritted teeth.

“You just gave yourself away and you didn’t even notice.” Robin crouched, looking down at the street. “Tell me, do you have any idea why the police made so many arrests that day?”

Anarky felt Robin was simply asking to show off, so he didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering his question.

“Back at the station I asked you if you knew who the people arrested were.”

“They weren’t in the system, they hadn’t processed them yet.”

“That’s strange isn’t it? The police get rewarded by the number of arrests they make before the day is over, after all. I know,” Robin quickly added as he heard Anarky click his tongue. “I know. But with something as big as this why would they wait over two days?”

“Someone’s keeping them from doing it.” Anarky said, holding his chin in his hand. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes. At first I thought you were buying time to do your funny little prank. Deleting data from computers, keeping them off the system. But while I was in there undercover waiting for you to appear I had access to physical files.” Robin recalled looking for any files pertaining to the bombing and the arrests made. He’d found it strange that the police had been so swift and decisive. “Zero, zilch, nada. Not a single fingerprint. Now, you  _ can _ hack the precinct’s old computers...” Robin turned to Anarky who was now looking intensely at the ground,“...but you can’t hack police officers.”

“Unless you bribe them.”

“Exactly.”

“Someone paid them off to keep these people off the system, but then why keep them captive…?” As soon as he asked he had a sudden realization. “Unless…” 

Robin nodded. “Unless they’re being threatened. Someone is using their arrest as a bargaining chip.” 

“But these people are innocent. They don’t have proof they did it.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Anarky snapped his head towards him and he shrugged. “95% of criminal cases in Gotham end up with a guilty sentence. If they risk going to trial they’ll lose for sure.”

Anarky scratches his scalp, displacing the hat on his head slightly. “I should have—”

“No.” Robin said, getting to his feet. “You were right before. There’s no use in you getting caught. In fact you’d just have made their sentences worse. Conspiracy with a registered Arkham escapee? Woof.”

“I’ve never been sentenced to Arkham.”

“But you’ve broken in and out of it.” Robin said, looking serious. “Anyways, that’s not important. What I mean to say with all this is that even if you got charged in the place of these people it would be no good. Because then whoever is threatening them gets away with it.”

“Right.” Anarky said, his hands balled tightly into fists.

Robin paused for a moment to observe Anarky, moving towards him but stopping as it seemed like Anarky watched him warily from the corner of his eye.

“You’re really upset about this.” Robin stated.

“Of course I am!” Anarky spat. “Aren’t you?”

“I admit it is a very disheartening situation but that's how things are, there’s no use in getting mad if we’re not smart about it.”

“That’s the problem with you superhero types.” Anarky mocked.

“What?”

“You! You’re part of the reason things are like this.” Anarky said, closing the distance between them to jab a finger at his Robin emblem. “You’re desensitized, you don’t feel anger anymore. It’s just become routine so you allow things to stay the same. But then what good are you?!”

“We’re trying to help.” Robin said, trying not to rise at his taunt. He didn’t think working with Anarky wouldn’t have it’s bumps in the way so he had expected something like this eventually.

“You Bats claim to work outside the system but you’re not. You’re working within it. You’ve become just another rank in Gotham’s police structure.”

“That’s not—”

“True? Please. You said 95% of cases that go to court in Gotham end up with a guilty sentence. How many of those did  _ you _ put in there?”

Robin’s eyebrow twitched. “They’re—“

“Maybe they  _ are _ criminals. Maybe they did do horrible things.” Anarky said, getting on Robin's face. “But who do you think made the jury so certain that anyone coming in through their doors was guilty beyond doubt?” 

Robin was taken aback, he didn’t know what to say to that but his own anger had already flared. “Who do you think you are to lecture me about this? Do you think you’re better than us?”

“Maybe I am!”

“Then why is a man dead and over ten innocent people in jail now?” Anarky's breath caught in his throat. “Who have you helped? Aren’t you as redundant as you claim  _ we _ are?”

Anarky was quiet.

Robin took a step back and breathed deeply, rubbing a hand through his hair. He’d gone a bit too far on that one, but it was something Anarky needed to hear even if he already knew it. 

“Sometimes what we do isn’t enough,” Robin said, trying to sound comforting. “But all we can do is hope that our efforts eventually stack up enough to be meaningful. Don’t burn too hot too fast. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Anarky didn’t reply, simply looking away to the dark office building. After a moment of uncomfortable silence he spoke up. “So? What’s your point?”

Robin looked at him, unsure now if they truly could work together. Anarky had good intentions but he was stubborn in his ways, it’d be difficult but he had to do it. Or rather, he really did want to give him a chance, and so he  _ would _ do it.

“I notice you didn’t ask who it is that’s threatening these people.”

“...”

“This would be easier if you told me what you know.”

Anarky finally looked back at him. “Maybe I want to see you struggle for once.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait for that to happen. It’s not hard to figure out. There is only one person, or rather, entity, who would benefit from this.” Robin pointed at the office building. 

“You think someone in CENIT did it.”

“That day you decided to make a statement there was something else happening. Reviewing traffic cameras revealed that easily. There was a protest.” 

“A protest?” Anarky said surprised.

“You probably missed it since you were busy planting bombs inside printers, but a group of CENIT workers had gathered in the streets earlier that day. It attracted police attention but it was very peaceful, well, until...”

“I see.” Anarky said, cutting him off. He already felt guilty enough. “So the reason why they’re being threatened is to use the arrest as leverage against their demands. What scum.”

“That’s not the only thing I learned from that. Though I didn’t realize it until now.” Anarky tilted his head towards him. “You weren’t there because of these workers' protests. You didn’t even know who they were. You had a different reason to attack that office that day, didn’t you? Are you still not going to tell me?”

“...”

“Fine. Keep your secrets. It’s not important right now. But here’s the thing.”Robin raised his hand and lifted a finger. “First there’s O’Hare. He knew something that someone didn’t want to get out and got murdered, he also happened to work at CENIT. But without knowing what he knew it’s impossible to follow that lead.” He pointed at Anarky with his finger. “Which you obviously know  _ something _ about but won’t tell me for whatever reason.”

“And?” Anarky asked impatiently.

“And two,” he said, lifting another finger, “the timing of these protests. Something is happening in CENIT that is making its workers troubled, but it’s bad enough to warrant threatening these workers to silence them.”

“I see. What are we waiting for, then?”

“Well, we still don’t know who’s doing this or  _ what _ they’re doing. And these workers likely won’t talk anymore. That’s where you come in.”

“What? You want me to hack into CENITs database? I would think you can do that yourself.”

“I doubt they’re keeping sensitive information in the open. Searching for it would take too long as well, judging by the lengths they’re going through to keep it a secret.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“You’re going to infiltrate the CENIT manufacturing operation. Since you love going undercover so much.” Robin grinned.

“Huh? Why can’t  _ you  _ do it?”

“I’m too recognizable,  _ remember _ ? But you’re perfect for the job.”

Anarky looked unconvinced but finally acquiesced. “Fine. What do I have to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if that last bit was so thick in exposition, I wanted to have them play push and pull with the case a little bit while also setting up more information about it...


	6. Chapter 6

Robin had guided Anarky to one of Batman’s nearby safe houses to prepare him for his mission. He felt a little nervous bringing him in at first; after all, it meant possibly getting found out by Batman and then the whole thing would be bust. Thankfully though, as it was one of his older safe houses, so other than a few spring traps there weren’t any safety measures like security cameras connected to the cave.

Sadly, it also meant that with Anarky knowing about it the safe house was burnt and wouldn’t be usable again, which was a shame, in his opinion. It was a true classic, but there wasn’t any way to get around that. 

He allowed himself to marvel at the place for a moment. Even after all these years the history of Batman’s path to become the world's greatest vigilante-slash-detective always pulled at something rooted deep inside him. Oh, how he wished to be a cockroach on the wall during those times.

Anarky on the other hand gave a quick look at the place and sneered. “No wonder Batman is so rich, he’s stingy even with his own stuff—are those cobwebs?”

Robin glared at him. “What? Afraid of spiders?”

“Oh, terrified. Why don’t you go and write that down on my dossier for the next time you try to force information out of me? See how that works out for you.” He said, dropping onto the couch like a stone in water, making dust fly up all around them. He sighed, though the sound was muffled by his mask. 

“Don’t get too comfortable, we have things to do,” Robin said, glancing out the window. The safe house might be surveillance free but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that Batman could be watching. Guilt would do that to you, he supposed. And paranoia.

“Then by all means go ahead.” He sighed, though the sound was muffled by his mask. “I simply don’t understand why  _ I _ have to be the one going undercover while  _ you _ stay cozy up in here.”

“Oh, now suddenly you like it here? Pick a struggle and stick with it, maybe.”

He shrugged. “Anything’s better than being your errand dog.” He sounded actually upset, so Robin swallowed any jokes that might rile him up even more like holding his hand out and asking for his paw.

Robin looked at him sitting comfortably on the busted up couch: his legs were crossed and all business like, while his arms were spread on the back like he owned the damn place. He had no appreciation for the historical value of the safe house, he thought bitterly, even as he watched a mouse scurrying to hide inside a wall.

Instead of antagonizing him though, he said, “Well, you know who I am,” and he wasn’t going to say it. He hated the fact that his own identity was somehow always in the open without his say so, no matter how careful he was. His dad, his ex, his team… He would like to be the one to tell someone someday and for them to be surprised. Not like that was ever going to happen. He glanced at the window, then back at Anarky. “I’m too recognizable  _ and  _ famous to be running around like an overworked and underpaid worker. You on the other hand...”

“Go ahead. Finish the thought. Just what about me says underpaid worker?”

“I was  _ going to say _ you benefit from anonymity.” He saw Anarky perk up slightly in the corner of his eye. Yeah, bet he likes that. “And besides I won’t be cozy up in here, I’m going to be following your movements the entire time.”

“To make sure I don’t run away?”

“To make sure nothing  _ happens _ to you.” Well, and also to make sure he didn’t run away but he didn’t need to know that. He was already annoyingly paranoid, enough that it made it unbearable to work with him. “You’re not my errand dog and you’re not working  _ for _ me. We’re working  _ together _ , and unlike you that  _ means _ something to me.” He turned away from Anarky. “It means I’ve got your back, even if you don’t have mine. For the time being, you’re my responsibility,” he almost  _ felt _ Anarky starting to say something but he cut him off before he began, “and that only means I won’t let anything happen to you on my watch, if I can help it.”

Anarky didn’t say anything so Robin returned his attention to the rest of the room.

The safe house wasn’t big. Again, it had been easily one of Batman’s first thirty haunts, so that meant he’d been flying solo at the time. No Robin. 

The whole thing was one room. There was a boarded up window on the wall behind the old couch. There was, besides the couch, a bed. Or rather a mattressless, twin size metal bed frame pushed up vertically. Obviously Batman had seen no use in having a proper bed. He probably had used the couch for any sleep, if he got any to start with.

Against a third wall was a broken up square mirror attached to it with a sink underneath. The sink probably had running clear water, but he wasn’t dying to test it out himself. If Anarky got thirsty he could take one for the team.

Next to the sink was a medium sized wooden armoire. It was ornate and quite imposing, easily clashing with the rest of the room with its dark wood and intricate carvings.

He approached the wardrobe and opened one of the doors carefully; imposing as it was, it was still old and he didn’t want to be the one to break it. 

Inside was a bag he had stashed ahead of time when he came to sweep for bugs. He picked it up, cradling it in his arms and stopped for a moment to appreciate the spacious armoire. It was big enough to fit a person and was probably made with a luscious bedroom in mind, and yet here it was. He wondered where it had come from, why it was chosen. Had Batman had a reason or had it been just pure chance?

No matter how many years went by, he was still fascinated by this kind of stuff. He supposed one couldn’t outgrow childhood vices all that easily. He missed the times he was an outsider looking in, somewhat. Now that he was in the thick of it, it had become much harder to really appreciate the vastness of Batman’s operation. Taken for granted, he supposed.

A sigh escaped his lips as he ran a hand across the dusty wood, even though he couldn’t feel it through his gloves.

Anarky cleared his throat and Robin turned to look at him. “Just, would you like me to give you two some privacy?” He said, his tone clearly mocking.

Robin’s mood immediately soured. “Can't even appreciate…” he mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“I said—“ he started loudly, then settled down, “I was just thinking that… you got Batman all wrong. He isn’t stingy with his safe houses, like you think. He’s just… pragmatic.”

Anarky snorted and one of Robin’s eyebrows twitched at the sound.

He stomped to the wall next to the window, just behind the couch Anarky was so comfortably settled on and placed a hand on it. “You jumped to a conclusion that fits your narrative, but you didn’t really  _ look _ at the room, did you?”

“Okay, Sherlock Holmes. What’s your point?”

Robin rolled his eyes, and turned to look at the wall, his fingers splayed against it. “This wall is completely intact. Batman reinforced all the buildings he could to prepare for anything. Anything! It survived the Earthquake with nary a scratch. A truly immovable object.” He sighed again, dreamily this time. “It makes you wonder what kind of cases he worked on here, or if he ever did use it. It’s  _ his _ , but it’s also part of Gotham.” He shrugged, then looked back at Anarky who was silently looking at him.

“...My parents' house crumbled with the quake,” he finally said looking down, his fists clenched into fists. Robin hadn’t expected something like this and shamefully took his hand off the wall. “So what if he made sure a dusty old studio apartment he doesn’t even use stayed intact? But no, you’re absolutely right, he is simply amazing.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” He wanted to defend Batman, just a little. Tell him that he’d tried to do the same for everyone else but had been stonewalled. But it felt like an excuse, after all, he knew first hand how Bruce could move mountains with just enough effort. Though it also seemed unfair to blame him for all the destruction that happened that day… he was truly torn.

“What he’s doing is nothing more than sweeping his mistakes under the bed out of sight. He’s preserved this  _ victory  _ in time, as you put it. But he still moved forward. There’s people out there who’s time stopped that day in all sorts of ways. Do you think that’s also amazing?” Anarky finished softly.

Robin stared at him, his lips parted and at a loss for words. He had been insensitive, he realized. He should have stuck to the case. He didn’t even know why he’d started talking about something so trivial and unimportant like this. Maybe, it had been such a rare opportunity to share something he was passionate about that he didn’t stop to think who he had been talking with.

He looked at the room again. Falling dust particles glistening as they danced in the air, walls stained with dirt and a ceiling corner circled with mold. Empty and abandoned, waiting for the day to become useful again.

Was there really something amazing about this room after all?

He settled on the couch daintily, as far away from Anarky as it was possible and put the bag between them. He slid open the zipper and pulled out a folder,then handed it to Anarky.

“This is your undercover identity. Roger Sinclair, lab assistant.” He explained awkwardly as Anarky leafed through the file. “Study it,  _ memorize _ it. This is all backed up with actual documents, you even have a social security number and a mortgage. Plus, everything you need to know about that CENIT plant is there: floor plans, shift changes, a compilation of general work gossip.” He got a look at that last one. “Facebook, man. And, you never know when it’ll come in handy. There’s only a few blanks we need to fill. First...”

Anarky turned his attention to him and Robin observed him.

“Do you even go to school?” Robin asked

“What? What’s it to you?”

He fought the urge to sigh. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” He reached over and pointed at a line in the file. “If you go to school in the mornings I’ll put you in the night shift, same in the inverse. If you don’t go to school you can do a full shift, but I advise against that, you’ll just be wasting both our time.”

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t want to do  _ that _ .” Robin didn’t grace that comment with a reply, so Anarky continued. “Night shift is fine.”

“Expected as much.” Robin said, rolling down one of his gloves, revealing his wrist computer. 

“It’s not like I couldn’t have skipped school for this.” Anarky said, his head tilted towards Robin’s wrist as he typed something into it.

“Right. I think so as well. But some people,” he said, glancing at the boarded up window, “think it’s important to stay in school, so.” Once finished typing he fixed his glove and rummaged through the bag again.

“You go to Gotham High, right?”

“Yup.”

“How predictable.”

“Well,” he said, frustrated at the mess he’d made in the bag, “that’s where I’m expected to be now, as Tim Wayne.”

Anarky nodded, “Keeping up legacies.”

“Yep. Ah, found it.” He finally pulled out what he’d been looking for, which was a camera bag.

“I thought I was a lab assistant.”

“This isn’t for you. I need to take your picture.”

Anarky straightened up from his slouch. “No.”

“What? Why no? We need it!”

“No, you’re not taking my picture.”

Robin scoffed. Talking to this guy was a rollercoaster. “I need photos of you for your alibi. Like your ID?”

“And then what, put it in some facial recognition program or even worse, social media?” He said, getting to his feet. “Like you said, I am anonymous, I’d like it to stay that way.”

“I can’t believe it took you this long to say that phrase. Listen, man. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Do you even understand how important my privacy is?”

Robin gestured at himself. “Hello?”

“Oh please, you live in the light of paparazzis. You thrive in it.”

“You don’t know me at all.” Robin said, frowning, but calmed himself after a moment seeing how upset Anarky was. “Listen. I just need them for your IDs. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary. Hell, I’d use your mug shot if I could. But we need to do this. And…” he thought for a moment. “I promise I’ll clean up after. No trace of your face anywhere. You know we have the tech.” Anarky looked at him and sighed, so Robin took that as a yes. “Cool. Now put this on,” he pointed at a bundle of clothes in the bag. “Let’s get it over with.”

He set up a white sheet on one of the walls and put his camera on a tripod, then riddled with the lights while Anarky got dressed.

“You done yet?” Robin asked as he turned to look at him and saw he was already dressed. 

He’d brought a red button up and a pair of black pants for him. He had sort of guessed the measurements but they seemed to fit him well. He also had a pristine lab coat to complete the look.

Anarkys costume was folded up neatly in a pile on the couch, including the white mask and the red hat he usually wore. But Anarky wasn’t looking at him, instead he was just standing there, staring blankly at the floor, with his back towards him. 

Robin bit his lip. “Hey, if… if you’re so against it I won’t make y...” he said, but trailed off as Lonnie looked up at him and in that same motion his blond hair fell to the ground.

It fell, revealing shockingly red hair, bundled up in a hair net.

“Close your mouth, there’s flies.” Lonnie said, taking off the net and shaking his hair loose. It was easily well past his shoulder. It was such a deep wine red it almost seemed unreal, like a hair dye ad.

Robin’s mouth bobbed open and closed like a fish’s, until he finally found the words to express what he felt. “That was a wig this whole time?!”

“Of course, I’m not as careless as some people I know. Now let’s get this over with.” He said, moving to stand in front of the white sheet.

Robin held the camera and swallowed, hesitating. “Is this really alright?”

“No. But you’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid.”

“This!” Robin gestured at him. “You, with the… isn’t that more revealing of who you are?”

“Lonnie Machin is a redhead.” He said without thinking twice, as if this was something he said a lot. “Anarky isn’t. I haven’t been Lonnie Machin in a long time, and I don’t pretend to be. So this much is fine.” 

He’d said that, but Robin saw the way he hugged his arms, like the words made sense but he still couldn’t accept it fully.

He made a mental note to truly scrub the web clean of any of these pictures after this was over. Then, before Lonnie changed his mind, he started taking the pictures.

After the photo shoot was over and Anarky was back on his costume, still slightly off kilter but clearly more comfortable than he’d been the last couple of hours Robin approached him.

“I have one last thing.”

Anarky made a full body groan. “What now?” He said, adjusting his hat, where the blond wig was hiding his true hair color.

“Just this,” he presented his palm out. In it was a small device.

“What’s this?” Anarky asked, taking it and inspecting it closely.

“An earbud. It’s connected to my channel. This way, we can stay in touch during the mission.”

Anarky looked at him, and it was weird to be able to see his sharp, calculative eyes without his mask on. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll use this as a backdoor into all your channels?”

Robin shrugged. “Good luck with that, I’ve coded it so that you can’t do exactly that, but... Just, a question.” Anarky raised an eyebrow. “What would you do then?”

“What would I do?”

“Yeah. Just wondering. You go through all that trouble and then what do you do with it? Use it to stop us from solving crimes? Sell it to the highest bidder? Doesn’t sound like you.”

“I could think of a use after I have access to it.”

Robin shook his head. “Sure. And you say  _ we _ waste our time. I’m trusting you not to do it, though. So remember that.” He looked around the room to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. “Well,” he said, clapping his hands once. “We’re done for today. Tomorrow it’s the real deal. Let’s get to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The earthquake this chapter makes reference to is the event called “Batman: Cataclysm”... the earthquake was so huge even the batcave got destroyed !  
> Also, the bigger themes of this fic have finally begun showing in this chapter, though it’s not too obvious rn. Took a while to get here tho !


	7. Chapter 7

Gotham’s Industrial zone was in the outskirts of the city, where dozens of factories produced the smog that coated the skyline, among other things. People on the wrong side of the middle class usually had one of two types of workplace in Gotham: the docks, where shootouts for the claim of illegal cargo were often if not nearly constant; or a factory, where the highest threat to your livelihood was Corporate Management.

One  _ could _ reach this area of Gotham by taking the freeway that leads to what used to be Bludhaven, though that only worked if you could afford a vehicle of your own, and the gas to come with it. Most workers simply used crammed trains to get to the closest station there.

Save for a few differences in size and the name of each company labeling the side of each building, the monotony of the old brick and mortar facilities created a maze-like environment, making it easy to get lost if you didn’t yet know to move around the place.

But then again this maze of buildings was only a problem for the new workers who  _ weren’t  _ personally escorted by Robin. 

The trip had been swift and straightforward as Robin had offered (quite forcefully) to personally drop him off on his motorcycle. “Only this time though. You need to make a good impression, so you can’t be late on your first day.” he had said.

Of course, Lonnie knew that roughly translated to “I don’t trust you.” Good. He didn’t trust him either. And though he didn’t appreciate the short leash he was being led on, he was positive that with enough force he could yank himself free.

As Robin parked on the side of the building he’d be ‘working’ at from today onwards, he took off the red helmet from his head and stared at his reflection.

It was undeniable that he hated the bats. He hated them but… their toys were kind of cool. Funded with Wayne’s blood money but still, very cool.

He hated Robin even more just thinking about it.

Said Robin was oblivious of these thoughts and turned to him to speak, “You good back there? I hope I didn’t go too fast for you.” His voice was muffled by his own helmet, but Lonnie could hear an unmistakably mocking lilt in it.

He dismounted from the bike and pushed the borrowed helmet onto Robin’s chest. He knew that the Robins bad habit to joke around was just that, a habit. A terrible, terrible habit that he couldn’t understand Batman having ever approved of.

Lately it just managed to come off as overly familiar though. He figured if he didn’t react to them enough times he’d stop making them out of shame.

He thought about this as he straightened his wind-ruffled clothes and found Robin still studying him.

“You have nothing on Caroline Hill,” Robin said inexplicably. A hand on the helmets ‘chin’ as if considering him.

“Who?”

“It’ll have to do.” Robin said, shaking his head.

A few workers walk past them and say some short, polite greetings as they head into the building and Robin returns the sentiment with a wave. 

He was definitely wearing his little costume, but with the helmet and an added jacket no one looked at him twice.

Lonnie doubted he could make his costume come off as so casual. It was, perhaps, too red. 

Then again it was made to be noticed.

He turned to follow after the other workers when Robin called back to him. “Hey, wait.”

“What?” Lonnie said, already a few steps away.

“Come here.” Robin beckoned. Lonnie has been trying to keep an impassive face through his interactions with Robin, but sometimes he couldn’t help his eyebrows twitching in annoyance.

“...What do you want?”

“Come on. Do you want me to shout?”

Yes, Lonnie thought. Yes, and make a fool of yourself, right here right now, you bastard. 

However a few workers were already glancing their way and Lonnie didn’t want any trouble that wasn’t of his own making. So in the end he closed the distance between them again and Robin presented his closed fist.

“Here, take this.”

Lonnie placed his open palm under Robin’s hand and something small dropped onto it.

“It’s an earbud.”

“...”

“That is to say, it’s  _ another _ earbud.” He retrieved his hand and leaned back, his arms crossed casually as if they were discussing the weather. Though maybe the attitude was just for show. “Imagine my surprise today when I noticed the one I gave you  _ just yesterday  _ was out of commission?”

“What were you doing, trying to listen in on me outside of the agreed time?” Lonnie said, still holding out the earbud away from him.

“I  _ wasn't _ .” He sighed dramatically. “I needed to check that you hadn’t thrown it out to the gutter as soon as I gave it to you.” Robin seemed to raise an eyebrow. “Way to live up to expectations.”

“That’s my line. Maybe I wouldn’t have needed to dispose of it if I didn’t think you’d use it to spy on me.”

“It’s for protection! And I wasn’t even _ trying _ to listen!” Robin protested.

Lonnie closed the hand holding the communicator into a loose fist. “Does that mean you’re above trying? Or did you already give up on attempting to squeeze information out of me by whatever means possible?”

Robin’s lack of answer could mean he was stewing in anger because he couldn’t deny the possibility or it was an open admission that he would have definitely tried.

“Listen. We’ve already discussed this. I need to be able to back you up if I need to. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to O’Hare. We don’t know who did that to him or why so we have to work with extreme prejudice. It’s not a restraint, it’s a safety net.” Robin pushed Lonnie's hand towards his chest. “Trust me, I've worked long enough under  _ him _ to know this much. Use it. And promise not to take it off, at least until the end of the day.”

Lonnie looked down at the earbud in his hand and something in Robin’s words pulled at him.

Robin cleared his throat and adjusted his posture. “You’re going to be late. I’ll be around.” With that he reeved his motorcycle and drove it away and out of sight, though Lonnie knew he’d be lurking in the shadows not too far away.

It was a stifling sensation, to have someone looking at his back, but not all that unwelcome. So he wore the earbud.

Not long after Lonnie entered the factory he heard a voice in his ear, it was soft, like a whisper, but it still made him flinch. “ _ You’re looking for Dr. Agatha Bennet, she’s your direct superior… _ ”

“I  _ know _ . We went  _ over _ this already.” He said with gritted teeth. “I’m not stupid. Now be quiet.” He tried to be inconspicuous but he still caught the attention of some workers still by the entrance. He coughed into a fist and could hear the faint sound of snickering in his ear. This bastard…

He didn’t need to have his hand held the entire time. Even though he’d never gone undercover — grifting really wasn’t his thing— it didn’t mean he didn’t know how to make the most of his current situation.

Robin might have his wildly convoluted methods to gather information but he had his own way to do things.

After showing his badge at the security checkpoint he walked purposefully around the ground floor like he knew where he was going. He could easily go to his designated area by himself, thanks to Robin providing the floor plans, but he didn’t want to do that just yet. He simply needed to roam around looking busy enough not to be bothered.

While doing so, he pulled out his phone. He connected to the WiFi — with no need to hack in, since he had been provided with the password —and then opened the message app. He quickly typed an innocuous looking message and sent it to one of his contacts.

The message read [[Remember theres a Copy of the Keys under the mat when you Come Back Home.]] and was sent to MoneySpider.

At a glance the message didn’t look suspicious but it was actually a coded message, sent directly to his own servers. This achieved two things, which he made sure to confirm in his phone's network settings.

The first was to make a copy of the local router he was already connected to. Same name and even same password settings. Even though it looked the same it wouldn’t actually provide any WiFi. 

It would have if he’d bothered to set up a hotspot, but for the purposes of this it wouldn’t be necessary.

He watched as a second network, same as the one he was connected to, appeared on the screen. And before he could compare one with the other, the first one disappeared and he was disconnected.

This was the second phase. 

The message had also triggered a command to commence a DDOS attack to the first connections router. He wasn’t worried about cyber security being a hurdle, even if the owner of the factory had hired the best nerds money could buy… he was better.

And he wasn’t even moving a muscle, at that.

Then, all he had to do was wait for everyone to realize their WiFi had been disconnected and they would look at his fake Network and connect like usual. They wouldn’t get any internet connection, but by the time they realized this all the keys saved in their phones and computers would already be cloned and stored in his own servers. 

It would only take a few minutes, and then the network would go offline and restore the original one before anyone could notice. Leaving everything as if nothing ever happened.

He couldn’t help the growing smirk in his face. Easy, too easy. 

Robin liked going on hoops like a monkey but he wasn’t a clown and he wasn’t stupid. He was going to get to the bottom of this ordeal without any help, Robin be damned.

Internally he cursed himself for even going along with this charade in the first place, but he’d been caught right after hitting a wall. And something Robin had said…

He shook his head. It had been only a moment of weakness, but now that wasn’t a problem. 

With these passwords he’d be able to access all the information points he needed, from the comfort of his home. He’d find who killed O’Hare and punish them, he’d find dirt on this entire company and bring it down, he’d avenge the innocent workers he’d gotten incarcerated and free them...

And then he will leave this putrid city and lay low before Robin realizes he’s been played a fool.

While he was lost in his thoughts he heard someone calling out a name, and he belatedly realized it was  _ his _ ‘name’. 

He turned and a woman clad in a lab coat speed walked up to him, her heels clacking loudly on the concrete floor. Her face was plain and her makeup was simple, though it didn’t manage to hide the bags under her eyes. The suitcase she held in one hand looked heavy, slanting her posture slightly to one side. This must be, if he recalled from the picture on her file, Doctor Bennet.

Her expression was fierce and her brow was covered in sweat. Apparently she’d been running all over looking for him. 

His theory was confirmed as soon as she opened her mouth. “There you are! You’re the new kid right? What were you doing all the way back here?”

For the first time in a while Lonnie took in his surroundings and noticed he was surrounded by huge vats of something. He really didn’t know where he ended up.

He made an apologetic expression and said “Sorry, I tried to find my post but I got slightly turned around… This place is so big.”

She exhaled with some irritation and wiped her forehead. “You should have asked for me at the entrance… No matter, we’re wasting time. I’m Agatha Bennet, as you know, I’m your boss,” she switched the suitcase to her left hand and held her right hand out for a handshake.

He ripped his eyes away from the suitcase and returned the handshake firmly “Sinclair.”

“Right, the prodigy.”

“Excuse me?”

She shook her head, “In my opinion you’re way overqualified for this job. It makes me wonder why someone with your qualifications would work as a mere lab assistant at a small pharmaceutical company such as this.”

She really was blunt.

“Ah, really?” Lonnie said, allowing some of his annoyance to drip into his words.

In his ear he heard a voice say “ _ Better safe than sorry. _ ”

“Well you know how the job market is nowadays… You can get as many accolades as you want; it won’t help you if no one wants to hire you.”

Dr. Bennet shook her head. “Well, we need the hands so I won’t complain. All I ask is for you to at least give a heads up if you ever snap out of it and go get a better job.”

“I could ask for a raise in that case,” he joked, thankfully, she laughed, though it was a bitter laugh.

“Well before management hears  _ that _ and shows you the door, let me show you the lab today. Tomorrow I need you to start doing your job so pay attention, alright?” They started walking together side by side as she gave him the grand tour. “First off, you’re on the wrong floor, Research and Development is…”

Robin was perched on a rooftop, doing some light maintenance on his grapple gun, the pieces lined up neatly in front of him.

_ He’s going to try something _ , he thought. It wasn’t so much a guess, rather it was certainty.  _ He will try to go around me somehow. _

He’d been listening intently on Anarky's channel, making a mental image of what was going on. Doctor Bennet introducing him to her team, showing him around and walking him through the experiments they were going to conduct. It was all standard. But still he felt Anarky was being much too complacent already.

He had dragged him basically kicking and screaming to join this mission so he didn’t expect it to be smooth sailing.

He started reassembling the grapple and considered Anarky for a moment.

As far as he could tell. Anarky began his foray into crime fighting around the same time he started his Robin training. He made a lot of mistakes along the way but that was to be expected. He’d been just a kid, motivated by anger and a desire for change.

He couldn’t help but think Robin and Anarky weren’t so different.

If it had been Dick, if it had been Jason, or Stephanie… 

Anarky, just like them, wanted to help make a difference. They were hurt by others and caused great pain. And like them he used that fire to do good. 

But unlike them, he had never been given the chance to have guidance. Batman had never serendipitously found him and taken him in to teach him. Because by then he already...

And so, Robin volunteered himself, even if now Anarky rejected that help. 

He didn’t regret this. He didn’t regret giving him this chance.

He wasn’t dumb enough to trust him or his intentions as being good and pure. But he’d knew about him, and he’d worked with him before. And he wanted to, at the very least, be able to vouch for him.

He was going to help Anarky the same way he had helped Batman, and then…

“ _ Robin _ .” Someone said into his ear. He flinched and looked behind him but no one was there. Of course, the voice had come from his communicator.

He quickly disabled the voice input of Anarky’s channel and replied. 

“Batman.”

“ _ You’re needed in Burnley. _ ”

“Ah! Ah... Is it important?” He said and then immediately grimaced. Of course it was important. Batman almost never bothered with asking for help from him directly. He should know it was probably really fucking important.

“Hey, Robin!” Another voice chimed in, Nightwing this time. So they were together… this might actually be catastrophically important in that case. “It’s not a big deal. We just,” there was a punch and a grunt, and then Nightwing came back with the same cheery tone, “happened to start,” a punch and a kick, “brawling some guys with Spoiler and I told B,” a faint scream was heard, “I tell him, this is a great bonding opportunity. Why not get the whole gang together?”

“Oh.” Is all Robin could say.

“Yeah, so why don’t you come on down, we’ll save you some guys.”

“Uh… well,” shit. He couldn’t tell them he was doing recon with Anarky, and even if he left the Anarky part of the equation out, he knew he’d give himself away  _ somehow _ . You don’t just lie to the world's greatest detective... without a chance to prepare. “I'm... kind of tied up right now.”

“What’s wrong?” Batman asked, with a small amount of concern.

“Nothings wrong! I’ve just… been doing kind of bad in school lately,” technically true.

Thankfully Spoiler was there to back him up, “Oof yeah! I heard they call him desk face in school because of how often he falls asleep in class apparently.”

“Yeah.” Wait, what? They do? And she  _ heard _ ? “So, if it’s not important…”

“Ah, alright.” Nightwing said. “Bummer.”

“Maybe next time.” God how he wished he was there. He had more patience than anyone — with the exception of Barbara and Alfred — to do long reconnaissance stunts but it was still boring as hell. He would rather be brawling some guys with everyone. But no, he was a philanthropist or something, so he was stuck here.

Before anyone could say anything else to convince him to leave his post he disconnected his com and returned to listen to Anarky's boring first day.

A few hours later, as the day shift workers trickled out of the factory, he was already waiting by the entrance on his motorcycle.

Anarky approached him at a snail's pace as if mocking him, but he couldn’t ruin his good mood. His good mood because the day was over.

“How was your first day?” He said, tossing him the spare helmet.

Anarky put on the helmet without any complaints and mounted the motorcycle. “Doctor Bennet is hiding something.”

“Oh?” He said with a raised brow. He didn’t expect him to really contribute any information so color him surprised. He turned the key on the ignition and began to pull away from the industrial zone slowly. “And what’s that?” 

“She had a suitcase with her the entire time I was there.”

“Suitcase?”

As Robin began to speed up on the highway Anarky braced a hand on the handles on the back of the seat. “She keeps her personal computer there among other things. She didn’t part with it no matter what, I even saw her enter the ladies room with it.”

“That does sound suspicious. Did anyone think it strange?”

“No, I imagine she’s been doing this for a while. Something tells me she has important information stored in there.”

“O’Hare worked as a Quality Control specialist, so he and Bennet probably interacted a lot… it’s a solid lead.”

“We’d need to find a way to access the computer. If she’s so well guarded with it I doubt she’ll put anything in it on a cloud service.”

“We’ll find a way. We also have to find out if she’s doing this under orders or if she has some other reason.”

“You don’t think she’s in on it?” Anarky asked incredulously.

“I don’t want to make assumptions.”

After that they grew quiet, and in the distance they could see the high rise buildings of the city begin to approach.

“Good job today.” Robin said after a moment of consideration.

“What?”

“You did good.” He felt embarrassment tickle his cheeks and he was thankful Anarky couldn’t see. It was always kind of uncomfortable to do this sort of things with someone new. Like he was being condescending though he didn’t mean it that way. It reminded him of his first few years as the leader of Young Justice or back when Stephanie asked him for crime fighting tips. “I know you’re not used to this kind of thing but hey! You didn’t get caught,” and didn’t run away, “that’s an A plus on my book.” His voice sounded like he was lying even though he meant it.

Anarky was quiet for a moment and then he muttered something that should have been washed away by the whipping wind but was heard clearly nonetheless. “ _ I just want to make things right _ .” The sentence came like a secret right inside his ear, and he smiled a little.

He was right about Anarky. He was a good person.


	8. Chapter 8

After leaving Anarky around the area they’d claimed as Sinclair’s neighborhood and making sure they hadn’t been followed, they split up and Robin went on a very late night patrol. He had expected to bust some heads before heading home but sadly—or rather, thankfully, to some perspectives—the streets had been calm.

It was the uncomfortable, stifling sort of calm. Like smelling rain before it pours and thunders. Something was coming, but it was always hard to tell what.

Still, as it was, Robin couldn’t do anything about this calmness other than stare at it warily from up high.

And so he went back to the cave.

When he arrived he was almost surprised to find a full house down there, but truthfully he shouldn’t have. He’d been the only one who missed the “family picnic” so to speak.

By the monitors he saw Bruce opening and closing all sorts of files with seemingly no pattern, though as Robin he knew there was a method behind that madness.

Possibly, Batman had picked up on the same vibe Robin had and was trying to prepare.

Close to Batman, Nightwing was walking on top of the railing like it was a tightrope. He must have heard Robin come in as he looked up and waved a hand before turning the movement to a side aerial.

Tim clapped more out of habit than amazement.

“Hey, Rob!” Dick said, throwing a towel over his shoulders. His wet hair dripping on it. “Missed you out in the field today.”

“Wish I could have been there. Street was a funeral by the time I started my patrol.” Tim approached the monitors and looked at them without focusing on any one thing. 

Dick, now by his side, whispered conspiratorially: “He wants to investigate more about the brawl we had,” he said, nodding his head towards Batman’s back, “but Spoiler told him under no uncertain terms that this was her case and that he should butt out.”

“With those words?”

“Verbatim.”

They watched Batman open and close a few more folders and Tim started to notice a bit of a pattern. Some files repeating more than others. The Joker, Crane, Isley, Strange, and then some others thrown in once or twice before being discarded. Though not one file stayed open more than a few seconds it was enough for Tim to figure out where Batman’s theories were leading him.

He cocked an eyebrow at this mad display. “And this is him exercising self control?”

“He’s doing his best.” Dick said solemnly. “Speaking of which,” he threw an arm over Tim’s shoulder an turned them both around to give their backs to Batman. “How was studying?”

“Hm?” Oh, right, he said he was bad at school or something. “Right. Well, I have a tutor so I should be doing fine.”

Dick whistled, “I feel sorry for them. I’d like to meet whoever’s teaching my precocious little brother.” He thought for a moment, “If anyone really does have anything to teach you they have to be a certified genius.”

“I’m not good at every subject.” Tim said dryly, letting Dick drag him into a slow saunter.

“Right, right.” Dick nodded. “Like history.”

“It’s all those  _ dates _ , man. And the names!”

“Yeah, by the way when was it the Bowery split from Crime Alley?”

“1987. And it didn’t split from Crime Alley, it split from the entire East End because of tensions between Carmine Falcone and Roman Sionis…” Tim then noticed Dicks mocking smile. “Wait, this doesn’t count, this is work, of course I remember stuff like this.”

“Alright,” they passed by a table where Alfred had left refreshments and Dick took an apple. He threw it in the air a few times as they talked “...then how about math?” 

“Easy.”

“Linguistics?”

“The riddler made sure I get an A on that one.”

“How about… chemistry?”

Tim was about to answer that  _ of course  _ he knew chemistry. They all did, to varying levels. Precise sciences were a cinch for him. But then he noticed another glint in Dicks eyes and he shut his mouth. Dick raised an eyebrow and his eyes flickered to the side for a moment before going back to Tim.

Tim cautiously followed the path those eyes drew and groaned.

Stephanie was looming over a table in the “war room”—which was mostly just a big table with a bunch of chairs and a few lights overhead—already out of her Spoiler costume.

“I thought it was weird you were so interested in my grades.” Tim said, rubbing a hand down his face.

“What’s weirder? Me asking about your day or you not finding an excuse to get out and fight some guys?”

Tim took Dicks hand off his shoulder and crossed his arms. “Contrary to popular belief you’re a terrible role model, you know?”

“I’m not,” he said with mock surprise,” I’m simply using empiric knowledge to inform my detective reasoning.” He took a bite out of the apple while considering Tim. “You’re not really one to pass out an opportunity to go out there, specially with school as the alternative, Mister Fake Uncle.”

“Maybe I’ve changed.” He said, definitely not pouting, “We all have, it’s been a while since then you know.”

“Could be, could be.  _ Or _ ,” Tim groaned at this tone. “Or you had another reason.”

The back of Tim’s neck started sweating a little. He made sure to regulate his voice so as to not give away his nerves. “Something tells me you have an idea of what that is?” He didn’t want to create a lie on top of another lie, he knew better than anyone how easy it was for them to tumble out of control. It was better to let people make assumptions and not try very hard to confirm nor deny them.

“You work together, you can’t avoid each other all the time you know?”

He was, of course, talking about Stephanie.

“I’m not avoiding her though. We partnered up just a few nights ago.”

“Right, like history.” Dick said, and at Tim’s odd look he elaborated. “You’re great at compartmentalizing, Tim. So good that you don’t even notice that you’re doing it. History for school, history for work. Stephanie and Spoiler. Tim and Robin.”

“What does that…”

“But they’re all the same thing, you know? History is still history, you” he jabbed a finger to Tim’s chest, “are Robin and Stephanie is Spoiler. And like it or not, you and her have history. When was the last time you talked to Stephanie?”

“Like I said—“

“ _ Not _ as Spoiler and Robin. Not about work.”

“...” 

He really couldn't say. Things had been… different since she came back. It had been great that she’d been alive and he’d been happy to have her back but in his mind sometimes she still felt like a ghost… He had asked for some time to figure things out and she—amazing, incredible that she is—understood. But then days turned to weeks turned to months and they—he—never really…

But Tim didn’t feel like talking about something like this now with Dick, or anyone really. Even less when she was right there. And so he did the one thing he was really good at.

“We have different ways to see the same things,” he deflected. “You saw Robin as an extension of yourself, and it was, truthfully. It’s still part of you and I understand why you’d look at things that way.” Dick sobered up at his words, but Tim didn’t give him a chance to reply. “I like to keep things separate, as you say I’m me, but I don’t want to be swallowed up by this mantle, so this way of doing things fits me just fine. Spoiler and I are doing alright, so no need to worry.”

Still, Dick looked worried about something, so to conclude he decided to joke a little. “Besides, I don’t want to take dating advice from you, Romeo. Who was the last redhead that kicked you to the curb? Starfire?”

“Wally,” he grumbled. “But—!”

“Hey!” Stephanie called out suddenly and they both turned to her. “Tim! Get your butt over here!”

Tim looked at Dick and gestured slightly with his hands as if to say  _ ‘See? We’re fine _ ’ and then made his way towards the table Stephanie was stationed at.

“What’s up.” He asked when he got close to the table, crosswise from her. The screen of the table was displaying a number of profiles on it, possibly the people involved in the brawl from earlier.

When he looked up to see why she hadn’t replied yet he noticed she was looking at something behind his back. He turned and unsurprisingly found Dick who had followed close behind.

“Oh, don’t mind me I’m just having a snack.” He said and bit into the apple as if you prove his point.

“Some privacy?” Tim asked and Dicks smile got impossibly wider.

“You got it little bro, nice talk, I’ll be over there in case you change your mind about getting advice from your seniors.” He winked and turned to leave.

“What the hell?” Stephanie asked when he turned to her.

“He’s being a dick. What did you need.”

Stephanie jumped on the change of subject by slumping on the table. “Help meee…” she said pathetically.

“What…”

“Help me out here!” She urgently motioned to the profiles on the table. “I have so many leads and all of them give me is bupkis, I don’t know where to go with this!”

“Why don’t you ask—“

Stephanie jabbed a finger towards his face, “Do not even suggest it.”

“He seems pretty eager.”

“Yes, to take over!” She said, throwing her hands in the air and then slumping back onto a chair in defeat. “If I let him it’s not gonna be him helping me, or us helping each other . It’s gonna be just him!”

“So you want me to be your sidekick?”

She cupped her chin in her hands and looked at him sweetly. “That’d be  _ sooo _ sexy of you, to be honest.”

He tacked back her comment with a deadpan: “I rather not think about being someone’s sidekick as a ‘sexy’ occupation.”

“Boo! Come on! I have nothing, just take a look and give me your take on this.”

He scratched his head and glanced at the table, “What about Oracle? She likes you, I bet she’d help you out.”

“Nah, she’s a very hands off teacher so she would make me work it out myself if she finds a clue… Remember you owe me a favor! You have to. Legally.”

“Okay, okay. Let me see.”

“Yesss!! You’re the best!” 

She got up with renewed energy and vaulted over the table to stand at his side. He uncomfortably stepped to the side to add some space but she didn’t seem to notice it. 

“This is the first guy we fought, remember? The construction worker.” She said, pointing at the relevant file, and when he looked at her he saw it reflected in her eyes, her long lashes were glistening in the light. “Then there was this other guy. Completely different part of the city, completely different job.” He noticed her hair was wet too, like Dicks had been, it was dripping onto her shirt, and the smell was easily recognizable as his own chocolate shampoo that she loved to steal from when she came around. “Today was just one guy but he was at a bar and caused a fight so it made things very messy. I knew it was the same thing because he also ended up in a coma after…”

He even tried giving her a bottle to take home but all she had said then was that it took the fun out of stealing it from him and that it smelled better when she did. It was… certainly more noticeable.

That was just like her.

He missed her. But why was this? She was right in front of him. 

“Tim?” She suddenly asked and he blinked awake from his own reverie.

He realized, embarrassingly enough, that he was holding a lock of her hair.

“Oh! It’s…” he felt like dying from embarrassment and looked around to find something to say. “It was, um, dripping on the display.” He rubbed at the table as if to dry it off.

“I see…” she said, holding the hair he’d just let go of, her face reddening over something. “Right,” she coughed, “so, your thoughts?”

Jumping on the distraction, still with hotness in the tip of his ears, Tim said, “It is difficult since it doesn’t seem like there’s a link between the victims but if you think about the symptoms it should be a good enough starting point.”

“Right. Like the fact that they go into a coma.”

“And that they all go into some sort of rage or rampage. He glanced back at the monitors and found them all turned off, Batman nowhere to be found. “B seems to think they’re being mind controlled.”

“Damn it! I told him not to butt in…”

“He doesn’t know by who still so you have a chance to beat him at it.”

“Right… I should look at the symptoms more closely. Want to help me out?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but remember I have my… other compromises.” He said carefully.

“Right! How’s that going by the way?”

“I’d rather not talk about it here.” He said lowering his voice.

She mimicked his tone and whispered, “I can’t believe you’re doing this behind their backs, what if something happens?”

“I could say the same thing to you. This case seems dangerous to take on your own.”

“Well, now I have a sidekick to fall back on!” She said, bumping her hip against his.

Tim found himself smiling. “And I’m not keeping this a secret from you.”

She blinked and then laughed “I guess we think alike, boy wonder!”

“Of course, were a dynamic duo.”

“Hell yeah! Let’s go at ’em!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... maybe you noticed I changed the relationship tags in this work. I’ve been debating this whole time whether to make this a Steph/Tim/Lon ot3 fic or just leave it as a Tim/Lon fic but... it ended up being important for the characters and impossible to remove from my outline and so I said fuck it! It’s already self indulgent as hell let’s go all out.
> 
> Still the main focus is Tim and Lonnie but Steph is IN this relationship.
> 
> Also sorry for any mistakes in this chapters?


	9. Chapter 9

They had moved “upstairs” to Tim’s room, in order to escape Dicks odd furtive glances that had been making Tim look slightly uncomfortable. They had seemed to be getting along just fine but it was always hard to tell when they were getting along and when Dick was  _ trying _ to get them to get along. 

And so she had suggested going up to the Manor to get some privacy. Tim has suggested the weird stable-turned-house next to the Manor instead, to respect Alfreds “no work in the house” rule.

They managed to get through most of the files they had on hand but they—or at least, Stephanie—were at their wits end.

Stephanie slumped backwards on Tim’s bed with a long groan. “This is useless! We’ve made no progress all night!”

Tim, who was sitting at his desk, swiveled his chair to peer at her. “You need to be patient with these things. It’s not like clues will just fall onto your lap.” He said, though his tone was betrayed by weariness.

They’d been going through all of the victims relevant information to try and pinpoint anything they might all have in common but came out of it with empty hands.

“It’s peculiar how different they all are, beside their economic class they don’t share many traits. Gender, age, occupation, all varying in some respect.” Tim rubbed his thumb between his eyebrows, his eyes shut deep in thought. Though Stephanie suspected he was just trying his best not to fall asleep right then and there. “I could almost call it intentional misdirection but we can’t discard that it might not matter.” There was a faint rumbling sound coming from somewhere but Tim paid it no mind.

Stephanie half raised herself with her elbows to look up at Tim. “What do you mean? Like… it’s indiscriminate targeting?”

“There’s no such thing as indiscriminate targeting, no matter how much anyone claims to hate everyone equally they’ll always start off from somewhere, and that’s what’ll give them away eventually.” he sighed, “It could very well be oddly specific targeting, or they’re working from an angle we haven’t thought of yet to get their victims…”

“Dammit. I wish we could just ask them!” Stephanie grumbled. “But all the victims went unconscious after their rampages and won’t wake up at all.” Again there was a faint rumbling. “What is that  _ sound _ ?” She finally asked, slightly irked.

“That might be an angle to tackle,” Tim said, ignoring her question. “We assume that all the cases start with rage and culminate in a coma but what if it isn’t? Maybe there’s other coma patients who are also victims and we didn’t notice because it happened quietly. The problem is that we don’t know what the culprit gets out of doing any of this...”

At this point Stephanie had gotten up and started looking around in search for the source of the sound. If only as a distraction from their current task. “I can get the records from Gotham General…” her eyebrow twitched at the sound and couldn’t believe Tim wasn’t even paying attention to it. “And, about motive, there’s another angle we haven’t explored.”

Tim twirled a pen between his fingers. “Which is?”

“The first case we stumbled upon… how small are the chances that Anarky was involved?” It had been something that had bothered her a lot, actually. “It’s strange that he lead us to that place at that time, it’s too much of a coincidence.”

Tim was quiet for a moment. She turned to glance at him, thinking it was a dismissive silence but Tim said: “It is possible, but… mind control,” he hummed, tapping the pen on his chin, “doesn’t really fit his M.O.”

“If he’s working on his own, that is.”

Tim seemed to seriously consider this. “I’ll do my best to find out if there’s a connection.” He nodded.

Stephanie nodded and then heard the rumbling again. “Seriously, what is that sound?? Am I crazy? Can’t you hear it?”

They were quiet for a moment and, sure enough, the rumbling was heard once more. 

“There!” She exclaimed, then realized the sound was familiar “It sounds like a phone vibrating.”

Tim took out his phone and looked at it. “It’s not this phone, so don’t worry.” He said, putting it away. 

“You got more than—What am I saying, of course you do.” She got up and went to the nearest shelf where she thought the sound was coming from. “And anyways, how do you know it’s not important?”

“This is my phone for Robin’s contacts, the other one is my civilian phone.”

“And so nothing short of an emergency is important?” she said sarcastically.

He must not have picked up on the tone as he assented, “Basically. There is a priority, at least.”

She rolled her eyes at that. It was so typical of him. “What if your friend Ives is stuck in a tree or something?  _ He _ can’t call Robin.” She said while looking around, though now more than trying to find the other phone she was simply snooping around. Tim liked to pretend he wasn’t one to decorate—and after what happened in Bludhaven, he had lost most of his material possessions—but he had a fair amount of small knick knacks on display; they were seemingly mementos from past missions, judging by the signed young justice baseball, slightly burnt on one side. Him and Bruce were more alike than she wanted to admit, though it was kind of cute, in Tim’s case.

“Ives wouldn’t call me, he knows I don’t answer the phone, I often forget to charge it.” He sounded slightly embarrassed to admit that last part, so she figured at least he was self aware. 

“Maybe he was so distracted by the possibility of falling from a tree that he forgot he lived in a world where you’re a total flake.”

She quickly lost interest in his shelf decorations—it's not like she knew what half these things we’re memories of, she hardly knew of his adventures with his friends besides some broad strokes and it only helped make her feel irrationally lonely. 

Though maybe he had saved the fateful brick that sparked their first meeting, she thought with a smirk. She turned towards him with the idea of joking about it.

It was then that she found that he’d been watching her like an eagle the whole time, not bothering to stop her from nosing around or telling her to respect his privacy. And she suddenly remembered that of course he didn’t, it was simply the sort of relationship they always had since the beginning.

She was always squeezing her head into places she didn’t belong; and when she forced herself into his space, he eventually made room for her, as much as he could spare. He’d been one of the first people to do that for her.

She realized that, with that kind of dynamic, they could get back together whenever she wanted. With her, burrowing a hole into his side and staying there until he enveloped her like a tree. That is how things always went with them. Even if he had said he needed time to come to term with some things, it wouldn’t be a match to her stubbornness.

It was a scary thought. She had an insatiable hunger, and she could easily devour him. He would let her.

But then she would always wonder if he wanted it as much as she did, that pushing him into making a choice would be like giving him no choice at all. And then with that knowledge neither of them would be happy. She wanted him to choose her again, but for once, she wanted him to be the one to take that step.

She ended up swallowing any words about first meetings and mementos of a simpler time. “Maybe it’s your night friend.” She said, ignoring the thoughts going through her head.

He raised an eyebrow, “Why would I give him my number, my  _ civilian _ number at that?”

She shrugged. “Would you have given him your Robin number?”

“No. I only give that to people that I know would call me for help,” he shook his head. “He’s stubborn like a mule, he wouldn’t even think of it.”

“What?” She exclaimed, and then bit her next words.  _ How come I don’t have it though?  _

“What?”

“Hmm? Nothing.” she laughed and an awkward silence befell them.

Tims fidgeted a little with his phone and then sighed, putting it away. “I guess I really wasn’t much help,” he said slightly embarrassed, looking out the window where the sky was becoming dyed with morning light. 

“I wasn’t actually expecting you to have an eureka moment after a few hours. If you did I would have to quit.”

“Have you reconsidered asking Bruce or—“

“Have  _ you _ ?”

He smiled, still looking out the window. “When he finds out he’s going to be really surprised.”

“Pissed, more like. You’re planning on telling him? If it were me I’d take it to my grave.” She said, leaning against a wall, looking out the window with blurred eyes.

“It isn’t something I’m ashamed of doing, not yet at least. And I’m not hiding it because I’m afraid he’d disprove of it, though I’m certain he would.” he scratched his cheek. “I just don’t think he would understand it just yet.”

Stephanie had a sudden thought at that moment. She actually didn’t know why Tim was doing any of this in the first place. He didn’t actually have to bother with Anarky, and in fact she suspected he would have an easier time solving this case if he didn’t have to accommodate him into it; not to mention there wouldn’t be a risk of Batman getting mad at him, even if he wasn’t afraid of it happening.

She wondered if Tim thought she would understand, but then again, he would have told her if he did. Something Batman and even her couldn’t possibly understand yet, what sort of reason could it be?

“Either way,” Tim said suddenly. “We need to know our limits, before anyone gets hurt.” He looked back at Stephanie, “No matter how much you want to prove yourself or how much I want to keep a secret, we can’t let anyone get hurt out of pride.”

“...I know. I’ll ask for help before that happens.” She promised, her heart suddenly constricted. “You too.”

Tim got to his feet with finality. “It’s getting late, or rather, early.” he yawned. “Want me to give you a ride to school?”

The question took her by surprise. Ever since Tim asked for some time to think about things they’d been keeping quite a bit of space between them. She wasn’t quite able to keep the smile out of her face when she said, “If you insist.”

Lonnie was very close to losing his mind. There was an unstated reason why he had chosen vigilantism as his raison d'etre, and it was very simple. He was not made to be bossed around by penny pinching parasites.

And really what better environment to become a human carpet than a factory. Even if he was working “undercover” in the lab area, it didn’t mean he’d be blind to the sort of treatment floor workers were getting. 

From the moment they stepped in, to the minute they left, they were openly monitored by security guards with dour faces, armed with rifles. Lonnie knew this wasn’t necessary. 

On his second day he’d gotten bored and snuck into the security booth while the guard was distracted. He found dozens of security feeds, covering every single inch of the factory floor and other offices. Excluding, however, the main office that he guessed the CEO used during visits, and Doctor Bennet’s private office.

Clearly Doctor Bennet was getting some sort of special treatment, though it was difficult to say if it was to her benefit just yet.

All of that aside, the level of physical security for an operation this small was annoying but not suspicious. Everyone who’s ever messed with investing on anything in Gotham has nightmares about corporate espionage and thugs bursting in to rob you blind any day.

However that didn’t mean these were conditions for anyone to work in. The workers were nervous and tense, their breaks were tight and their allowed contact among eachother was minimal. Clearly unions were as much of a concern as getting the krabby patty formula stolen.

After half a week of going along with this charade he hadn’t gone any closer to finding what he was looking for. But he wasn’t happy with what he  _ did _ find either. His skin itches from inaction, and he knew that doing any sudden moves would blow his cover out of the water.

But this wasn’t the way he operated, this was how  _ Robin _ operated, and so far, it had been fruitless. So maybe it was time to bring a small revolution to the workplace.

He was entering some data for Doctor Bennet in the lab when there was a knock on the door. Usually, one of the other lab assistants would go over and open it, but today he got up and went over to the door himself. Outside was a man wearing a floor worker’s uniform.

Lonnie had been expecting this.

More than a few times a day, every day, a handful of workers would come to the lab, looking for Doctor Bennet. Their eyes always downcast and tired as they came in, in the middle of their shifts.

They never spoke with her in the laboratory space, she had said it was hazardous, and it  _ was _ ; so they always disappeared into her private office, only to reappear moments later, with hasty steps and wary eyes.

He wouldn’t be surprised if Doctor Bennet's role in the factory was broader than just her research. And though he wanted to know what exactly that entailed, there were other things in his mind today.

He smiled kindly and led the man inside, “Hi, come on in,” he paused to think for a moment. 

He recalled some of the files that Robin had so generously provided. It was mostly gossip and useless information, but he was going to put it to good use. 

Not that Robin would think the same if he knew.

“Andy, right?” He said, and ignored the man’s confused expression as he continued. “I’m Roger.”

He hesitated for a moment before saying: “Nice to meet you. I-I’m just here to see the doctor.”

“I know.” They stopped by his desk, just before going to the door leading to Doctor Bennet's office. “Andy, I just have a couple of questions for you, real quick.” He looked deep into the other man’s eyes and his smile slowly dropped off his face. “It will only take you a moment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter back on the Lonnie and Tim team up ! Enough setup already lets gooo


End file.
